[ { "id": 204295, "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-1961", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n59\n\nIn the appendix to Robert Ainslie's book of religious essays lacking a title page, but published about 1820 under the title Reasons of the hope that is in us, there appears \"A Short Account of Lee Boo and Sackhouse, two Youths, brought at different periods from distant regions of the earth, still the rudest states of human society\" and we may read the following curious story:\n\nLee Boo was born in one of the Pelew Islands. The Antelope East India packet was, in 1783, wrecked on its shore.\n\nLee Boo was the son of the rupack, or king... and was brought to Britain for his improvement at the desire of his father. He was sent to an academy, and instructed in reading; being not a little proud of his acquirements. He was of a most affectionate temper. But why, amid all the cares of his friends of this amiable young man, did they not innoculate him? Exposed to the infection of the smallpox, he was seized with the fatal malady, and, at the age of twenty, died of it on 27th July, 1784, to the great sorrow and regret of all who knew him. The East India Company handsomely erected a neat monument over his grave in Rotherhithe churchyard, with an inscription, expressive of their gratitude for the humane and kind treatment afforded by his father to the crew of their ship the Antelope, when wrecked upon his island\".\n\nSackhouse was an Esquimaux, born in 1797, who in 1816 stowed away on a Scottish whaling ship and went with it to Scotland at his own request. He too learnt English, danced well, and played the flute; and those accomplishments, with his good-natured honest face, and obliging manners, rendered him a favourite and welcome guest wherever he went. He also died an early death in 1819 “most sincerely regretted”.\n\nThe appendix continues:\n\nHow unfortunate was it that those two excellent youths met such untimely fates! Had they lived they might have been the means, under Providence, of facilitating the introduction of Christianity into the most remote regions; and contributed to the happiness of millions,\n\nMr. Ainslie's two books of religious essays which he published remain deservedly obscure, but he himself has a claim to fame as a friend and correspondent of Robert Burns.\n\nBefore turning to Morrison's own contributions to Chinese studies and those of his contemporaries, mention must be made of his collection of Bibles in nearly thirty different languages, from Breton to Irish, from Hawaiian to Esquimaux, and Amharic to Catalan, more than a hundred of which are still in the Library,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204308, "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-1961", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n72\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nhua-pên (story-tellers' prompt-book), we can hardly know their origin or the invaluable part played by the author of the Fêng-shên in transforming them into interesting characters.\n\nLi Ching, bearing the same name as the historical hero in the early part of the T'ang dynasty, is no doubt derived from the Buddhist heavenly king Vaisravana.\n\nWe know from many Buddhist texts the legends of the Four Heavenly Kings. According to the Abhiniskramana-sutra (出曜集經) translated by Jnanagupta in 587, they are,\n\nDhritarashtra or Chih-kuo T'ien-wang in the East, who leads the gandharvas, musicians in heaven; Virudhaka or Tseng-chang T'ien-wang in the South, who is the sovereign of the kumbhandas or deformed demons; Virupaksha or Kuang-mu T'ien-wang in the West, who is king of the nagas who dwell in their palaces at the bottom of the lakes; and Vaisravana or To-wen T'ien-wang in the North, who is head of the yakshas, strong and brave genii.\n\nThe author of the Fêng-shên Yen-i adapted these four heavenly kings in his novel (Chs.31-40) and called them \"the four generals of the Mo family\". He made them brothers and commanders who took charge of the Chia-mêng Pass under the command of the Premier Wên T'ai-shih. Their individual names are Mo Li-ch'ing, Mo Li-hung, Mo Li-hai and Mo Li-shou. But in Ch.31 when they are summoned by Premier Wên T'ai-shih, the author writes, \"The four heavenly kings (ssu t'ien-wang) strode forward,” thus unconsciously revealing their origin, and afterwards in Ch.99 they are given the titles of Tsêng-chang T'ien-wang (Mo Li-ch'ing), Kuang-mu T'ien-wang (Mo Li-hung), To-wên T’ien-wang (Mo Li-hai) and Ch'ih-kuo T'ien-wang (Mo Li-shou) respectively. In Ch.40 the author describes the weapons of these four brothers through the mouth of General Huang Fei-hu as follows:\n\nThe eldest brother Mo Li-ch'ing is twenty-four feet in height, with a face resembling that of a crab, and his beard is like copper wires. He fights always on foot with a long spear, and he has a sword which is called \"Blue Cloud\", on which there are charms and a seal saying \"earth, water, fire and wind\". The wind caused by the brandishing of this magic sword is a black wind in which hundreds of thousands of spears would run and cut off the limbs of men. Following the wind is a blaze in which flaming golden serpents cover the atmosphere with black smoke. The weapon of Mo Li-hung is an umbrella.\n\n* chúan 16, Shê-kung Ch'u-chia P'in (攝功出家品).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204309, "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-1961", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n73\n\ncalled \"Umbrella of Noumenon and Unity\" (hun-yüan san A) which is decorated with emeralds and precious pearls of divine power which are threaded together to form the words: \"to pack up the universe.\" When this umbrella is opened, heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, will be covered up by darkness, and when it is rolled the world will be shaken. Mo Li-hai carries a spear and on his back there is a four-stringed guitar (p'i-p'a) which will produce the same effect as the \"Blue Cloud Sword\" when played on and the four strings correspond to earth, water, fire and wind. Mo Li-shou carries two whips and a bag in which is concealed a peculiar creature resembling a rat, hua hu-tiao (the striped marten). When hurled into the air this creature will assume the shape of an elephant with wings from its ribs and will devour every one.\n\nThe combat between these four brothers and the heroes from the camp of King Wu can be found in Chs.39-41 of the novel. They are engaged in mortal combat with the Li brothers, Chin-cha, Mu-cha and No-cha in Ch.40. If the reader knows that Li Ching, the fabulous father of these three Li brothers is in fact derived from one of these four heavenly kings, Vaisravana, the ingenuity of the author of this novel can be appreciated, because before the publication of this novel, in many other works Vaisravana and the Chinese god Li Ching, based on the historical hero so named of the Tang dynasty, had long been amalgamated and formed a single name, P'i-sha-mên t'ien-wang Li Ching (Vaisravana or Li Ching, the Heavenly King of Vaisravana). The Chinese transliteration from the Sanskrit \"Vaisravana\" since the T'ang dynasty has been Pi-sha-mên (R), the last character of which, mên, though senseless in this connection, normally means \"gate\". Thus, in popular literature, the term P'i-sha-mên lost its original meaning and became the name of the P'i-sha Gate, and it was therefore natural enough to have a heavenly general, like Li Ching, to take charge of it, though in English this may appear peculiar.\n\n* In Yang Ching-hsien's (MRK) play T'ang San-tsang Hsi-t'ien Ch’ü-ching (EXRE), Scene 9, we read \"P'i-sha-mên hsia Li Tien-wang\" (TX) which means the Heavenly King Li under the P'i-sha Gate. In the prompt-book Ch'i-kuo Ch'un-ch'iu P'ing-hua ta (TH), chüan 3, we have \"P'i-sha-mên To-t'a Li T'ien-wang\" (*XE) or P'i-sha-mên, the Heavenly King Li who holds in his hand a pagoda. Sometimes the story-tellers thought since there was a P'i-sha mên (gate), it was wise to create a palace, called P'i-sha Kung (CE W D). In the Nan-yüeh-chi, Ch. 11, we have \"P'i-sha Kung Li Ching Tien-wang\" (K*XE). In a long eulogistic poem in Ch. 12 of the Feng-shen, there is a palace in heaven called K'un-sha Kung (R V E) which is obviously an erratum.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204312, "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-1961", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n76\n\n*\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nday of the second month, before noon, thirty li from the city, on the north-east and in the mist there was a general, who was ten feet tall, at the head of some three to five hundred soldiers all equipped with armour. Near twilight, the sound of the drums and the hubbub shook the mountains and earth within three hundred li and they stayed there for three days. The troops of the five states all retreated. The strings of their bows were gnawed through by golden rats and their other equipment was broken and became useless. Some of the enemy soldiers who were old and feeble could not escape, and were going to be killed by our men. Then there was in the air a loud voice which ordered, \"Release them and do not kill.\" We looked at the place and saw Vaisravana revealing himself over the tower of the north gate of the city with a bright light behind him. A portrait has been made and is attached to this report.\n\nVaisravana defends our boundaries and comes to the relief of our besieged garrisons to carry out the orders of the Buddha. His third son Nata (E) follows him holding up a pagoda with both hands. It is said by the great priest of the Tripitaka, Amogha, that on the first day of every month Vaisravana assembles his devas and genii; on the eleventh day his second son Tu Chien would say farewell to the father and go on a tour of inspection; on the fifteenth day the four heavenly kings would meet and on the twenty-first day Nata would receive or give back the pagoda to his father.\n\n+\n\nThe above quotation is translated from the Tantric Pi-sha-mên I-kuei (\"The Ceremonies in the Worship of the Vaisravana\") alleged to have been translated from the Sanskrit by Amogha himself. As Amogha's name appears also in the text it cannot be taken as an impartial translation.14 However, as Li Ching was such a famous general in the T'ang dynasty, who fought many victorious battles against the Turks, it was again very natural for the Chinese to identify him with one of the four newly-introduced Maharaja-devas (the four heavenly kings).\n\nThe legend of the pagoda held in the hand of Vaisravana was developed from Tantric texts into a very complicated and interesting story in the Fêng-shên Yen-i (Chs.12-14). I think\n\n14 No. 1249, P'i-sha-mên I-Kuei; No. 1247, Pei-fang P'i-sha-mên T'ien-wang Sui-chun Hu-fa I-kuei (#SNIU); No. 1248, Pei-fang P'i-sha-mên T'ien-wang Sui-chun Hu-fa Chên-yen (IBR), all translation of Amogha, in The Tripitaka in Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204319, "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-1961", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n83\n\ncolour, and as No-cha stirred it up in the stream heaven and earth were shaken and the river trembled. This river was called Chiu-wan Ho (Nine-bend River) and was situated at the mouth of the Eastern Sea. Ao Kuang (#), the dragon-king of the Eastern Sea, surprised at this unexpected earthquake, ordered his inspector-yaksha, Li Kên (R), to go at once and find out the cause. When the yaksha reached the river he saw that the river was red and a child was bathing there, dipping his red silk gauze in the water. He cleft the water asunder and shouted angrily: \"What prompts you, little child, to make the river red and the crystal palace shake?\" No-cha turned back and saw a monster coming out of the water, a monster whose face was as blue as indigo, whose hair was as red as cinnabar, whose mouth was big with long projecting teeth and who had in his hand a halberd. No-cha scolded, \"You monster, how can you speak like a human being?\" The yaksha was exasperated and said, “I am an appointed officer. How dare you insult me?\" He jumped up to the bank and brandished his halberd towards No-cha. No-cha was naked and could only jump aside. Then he took off the bracelet from his right arm and hurled it in the air. This bracelet was a precious weapon bestowed on the Immortal T'ai-I by the Patriarch Yüan-shih T’ien-tsun of the Jade Palace of Abstraction to protect the Chin-kuang Cave where T'ai-I dwelt. It fell upon the head of the yaksha and his brains spilled on the ground. No-cha ignored his corpse but smiled and said, \"He has stained my precious weapon!\" He sat himself again on the rock, smiling and washing the bracelet. The crystal palace was shaken again and even more violently. When Ao Kuang was vexed the soldiers came back to report, “Yaksha Li Kên was killed by a child on the bank.\" The dragon-king was frightened, \"Li Kên was appointed by the Jade Emperor; who dared to murder him?” Saying this he summoned his men, intending to go himself. No sooner had the dragon-king finished his words than Ao Ping (F), his third son, requested permission to go for the father. So, Ao Ping, at the head of a troop of sea-warriors, mounted his water-cleaving monster, and with his trident in his hand, left the palace. The form of the breaking waves was so furious that the river seemed to rise several feet. No-cha stood up and marvelled, \"This is a flood!\"... (Ch.12)\n\nIn Ch.48 of the prompt-book Tung-yu-chi (\"The Eight Saints or The Voyage to the East\") when the Eight Immortals were crossing the Eastern Sea, Lü Tung-pin (SM) initiated an idea, \"During our crossing would it not be fine for each of us to throw one precious thing into the sea so that our divine power may be revealed?\" Therefore, \"When the dragon-king of the Eastern Sea was holding a meeting in his crystal palace, he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204328, "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-1961", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n92\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nfather\" was only one of revelation of supernatural powers (神通), and it was because of the imagination and the literary gifts of the author of the Fêng-shên that the story became so impressive and full of emotional appeal. The author continues:\n\nThe Immortal T'ai-I asked No-cha to follow him to the peach-garden and taught him personally how to use his \"fiery-pointed spear\" (火尖槍) which the master now bestowed on him. After that, the Immortal gave him the wind-wheel and fire-wheel which he might tread on while chanting incantations and which served him as a magic vehicle; and also a bag made of panther skin in which were the magic bracelet, the red silk gauze and a brick of gold completed his new armour. No-cha prostrated himself before his master once more, and after thanking him, held the magic spear in hand, safely mounted his wind-and-fire wheels and darted straight to the Ch'ên-t’ang Pass and challenged Li Ching, his father. (Ch.14)\n\n**\n\n** In order to prove again how the author of the Fêng-shên Yen-i adapted and utilized confused and promiscuous materials from previous works, we may list some of the arms used by No-cha with their earlier appearances in other prompt-books or plays as follows:\n\n(a) Fiery-pointed spear. In Act 4 of the anonymous play of the Yüan dynasty, Han Kao-huang Cho-tsu Ch'i Ying-pu (漢高皇祖母齊英布), the spear used by Hsiang Yu (項羽) is a \"fiery-pointed spear\".\n\n(b) Wind-wheel. The wind-wheel is originally the wheel, or circle of wind below the circle of water and metal upon which, according to Buddhist teaching, the Earth rests. It appears in many sutras including the Surangama-sutra (楞嚴經), Ch. 4. In Nan-yu-chi (南遊記) (Ch. 2 and 11) and Pei-yu-chi (北遊記) (Ch. 15) it is one of the arms of the Flowery Light (Hua Kuang or Ling Yao 華光, or San-yen Ling Yao 三眼華光). Ling Yao with a deva-eye).\n\n(c) Fire-wheel. The alatacakra, a wheel of fire produced by rapidly whirling a fire-brand. In chuan 3 of his Lêng-yen Ching Shu-chih (楞嚴經疏治) (? “The Principles of the Surangama-sutra\", in the First Series, Second Collection of the Tripitaka in Chinese, 大藏經, 1912), Lu Hsi-hsing says \"as the whirling of a fire-brand, reality does not exist\". In Nan-yu-chi (Ch. 2 and Ch. 11) and Pei-yu-chi (Ch. 15), the fire-wheel is also a weapon of Flowery Light.\n\n(d) Gold brick, The gold brick is also one of the arms of Flowery Light in Nan-yu-chi (Ch, 2 and Ch. 11) and Pei-yu-chi (Ch. 15). But both the gold brick and the fire-wheel are attributed to Flowery Light also in Yang Ching-hsien's T'ang San-tsang Hsi-t'ien Ch'ü-ching, a play of the Yüan dynasty, Scene 8. In Hsü Fu-tso's (徐復祚) T'ou-so Chi (鬧府記), Scene 19, these two weapons belong to Nata of Eight Arms (八臂那吒).\n\n(e) Magic bracelet. In Ch. 11 of the Nan-yu-chi, one of the weapons of No-cha is a \"purple-gold bracelet with raised flowers\" (紅花紫金圈) and it is the origin of the magic bracelet (ch'ien-k'un ch'üan 乾坤圈 the Bracelet of Vitreous & Resinous Electricity) in the Fêng-shên Yen-i,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204355, "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-1961", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch \n\nORASHKB and author \n\nVol. 1 (1961) \n\nISSN 1991-7295 \n\n119 \n\nAt the cemetery, the coffin is normally lowered into the grave without further ceremony and the hole filled. Just before the hole is filled, it is customary for each member of the family present to throw in a handful of earth. After filling, two candles are usually lit and placed near the head of the grave and three incense-sticks nearer the foot. Sometimes, absent members of the family may depute other relatives to set out candles and incense-sticks on their behalf, in which case the proportions are still observed. An offering of oranges may be peeled and placed on the grave, together with paper money. Finally, crackers are let off.\n\nOccasionally, after the coffin has been lowered and before the earth is thrown in, a male descendant present will make a cut in a live cock so that blood flows out. The cock will then be held over the grave to allow its blood to drop on the coffin and sides of the hole, in the traditional hope that the breeding properties of the cock will be transmitted to the deceased. Provided that the deceased is over middle age, sex normally makes no difference. A more modern version of this practice omits the incision on the cock, which is simply swung over the hole on the end of a piece of string.\n\nThe last rites sometimes involve the assistance of Taoist or Buddhist monks, even though neither the relatives nor the deceased may necessarily profess complete belief in either of those religions. The monks normally appear in a team of five: the leader with the other four ranged in pairs. Their form of service usually follows the pattern of Taoist and Buddhist chanting, accompanied by music, the striking of bells, small brass ringing bowls and wooden sound-boxes (muk ue). In major funerals, where the body is held elsewhere than in a funeral parlour, the last rites may continue for seven full days before burial, with further services every 7th day for a total of forty-nine days. If expense proves too much, some of the weekly services may be omitted but it is customary to include the 5th one, when married daughters and granddaughters are expected to contribute either wholly or in part; the final service is also required. At these weekly rites, the next-of-kin may sometimes cook rice and beans (red or green) which are then eaten by relatives in the hope of attaining long life (chuc shaû faân).\n\nAnother custom still often encountered is the placing of several pairs of trousers on the deceased, whether male or female. Half a dozen pairs of trousers is not uncommon.\n\nBased on a pun between the Cantonese foò (\"trousers\") and foò (“riches\"), the object is to provide wealth for the spirit of the deceased. Including jacket and underwear, an even number of garments is normally placed on a male; an odd number on a female,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204356, "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-1961", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n120\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nIn the New Territories, there are at present no funeral parlours and few undertakers. As in the agricultural interior of China, practical responsibility still falls mainly on the kinsmen of the deceased. The customary burial of villagers is in two stages: initial coffin burial, and subsequent exhumation and re-interment of remains. Having encoffined the body, the relatives normally sustain the vigil directly outside the home under a temporary shelter. Burial then takes place in a traditional village area, but no monument is erected beyond a small unshaped stone at the head of the grave. After five years or more, the body is exhumed. The bones will be cleaned by the family and be placed either in a funerary urn (kam t'aàp) or in a formal masonry grave (shaan fan) shaped like a horseshoe. In the funerary urn, the bones will be arranged in a manner as if the deceased were sitting in the Buddhist lotus posture.\n\nThe siting of funerary urns and horseshoe graves is of particular importance. Relatives will go to great lengths to ensure that the jung shui of the site is propitious. In other words, they wish to ensure that the benevolent influence of the site will protect the deceased, as a member of the family, so that he in turn will look kindly upon his relatives. The site is usually high up, commanding a view of water, and on a ridge or spur which represents, for instance, a dragon, snake, shrimp or crab in its formation. Standing with one's back to a horseshoe grave, one sees a half circle within a radius of ten yards, which is normally regarded as sacrosanct. Disturbance of the ground is regarded with strong disfavour. Traditionally, the left arm of the panorama in front should consist of a long ridge (containing a \"green dragon”) and the right arm of a shorter ridge (containing a \"white tiger\"). In a horseshoe grave, the exhumed remains are buried in a jar in the centre, just in front of a stone plaque (pei shek) that records the name of the deceased, the date of his death, and other details. Important graves of recorded ancestors or founders of a clan are often flanked by a small shrine (haû tỏ) on either side and sometimes another behind, at a distance of ten to twenty feet from the main grave. The object of the shrines is to persuade the earth god to look after the grave.\n\nWhether the exhumed remains are to be placed in a funerary urn or in a horseshoe grave seems to be governed by the sex and general standing of the deceased in the clan, or even by the financial state of the relatives at the time of exhumation. The remains are normally fit for exhumation after a minimum of five years of burial, but, even so, exhumation should not strictly take place unless there has been no pregnancy amongst the deceased's close female relatives in the immediately preceding nine months. This requirement, which would tend to impose some hardship", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204357, "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-1961", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n121\n\non the male relatives, can be got round by omitting pregnant wives from the ceremony. There is also a belief that exhumation should not take place during the years on which fall the 51st, 61st, 71st and other such birthdays of the male head of the family.\n\nIn Chinese public cemeteries, the same principle of exhumation is practised. At the end of each year, the particular coffin section where burials have been taking place is closed and left untouched for five years. At the end of that time, an official notice of intention to clear graves is published, giving relatives six months in which to exhume remains privately and re-inter them in the urn section. Any remains not exhumed privately on the expiry of the period of notice are then exhumed by Government and the remains re-interred in an urn section. The cleared coffin section is then eventually used again for coffin burials.\n\nApplying equally to urban and New Territories burials are the two important grave worshipping festivals of Ching Ming (105 days after the winter solstice, i.e. either 5th or 6th of April) and Chung Yeung (9th day of the 9th moon, i.e. in October). The first is the more important. The second was originally not a grave-worshipping festival at all, but an occasion for climbing to the top of a mountain to avoid evil spirits. Since so many graves are situated on hills, the practice of combining the hill climb with an opportunity of worshipping at graves has been developed.\n\nStrict Cantonese belief also requires that, at ch'un she (#1), which falls annually about two weeks before the Ching Ming festival, relatives should pay their respects to persons who have died within the past year. This ceremony usually takes place at home and its participants are restricted to older persons.\n\nAt the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals, it is customary for whole families to make an outing to their relatives' graves. There, offerings of pork, fruit and flowers are presented; incense and candles burnt; prayers offered; crackers let off. Minor repairs to the graves may be carried out and undergrowth cut back. Coffin graves in the New Territories may be marked with lime at the end and all types of graves usually have a piece of red paper and another piece of white paper underneath the red, tucked under a stone beside them. Exhumations will often be carried out at the Ching Ming festival. At the Tung Wah coffin repository, caskets of remains are opened and the bones spread out to air on sheets of paper.\n\nChinese believe that the spirit of a person leaves the body on death. In Hong Kong the general belief is that it descends into hell where the judge decides on the basis of the earthly merits of the deceased whether it may be allowed to return to earth by reincarnation as a child or, if very evil, as an animal. The main fear of the dead consists rather of the belief that to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204395, "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-1962", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "18\n\nF. S. DRAKE\n\nworking with their hands in the well-kept vineyards, the cherished penmanship and the care of ancient manuscripts reminiscent of 'the knowledge and zeal, which once so eminently distinguished the Chaldaean priesthood'.\n\n4\n\nThis is the Church which evangelized the greater part of Asia during the ancient and mediaeval periods, truly it has been called a Church on Fire, and the Great Missionary Church of Asia. But that the fruit of its labours are no longer manifest is because no Church has suffered martyrdom as this Church has; it has become the great martyred Church of the world.\n\nIII. THE NESTORIAN CHRISTIANS OF THE ORDOS REGION\n\nThe story of the Nestorian missionary movement before the Mongols conquered Central Asia and established the Yüan Dynasty in China (A.D. 1260 to 1368) can be pieced together with difficulty from scattered references in the Syriac records; but during the Mongol domination vivid descriptions of their activities have been left to us in the pages of the Mediaeval travellers from Europe to the courts of the Mongol Khans. These can be divided into two groups: Franciscan Friars and travelling merchants.\n\nIt was the time of the Crusades, and the great widening of men's horizons that these brought about. The enlightened policy of the Arabs had been followed by the restrictive measures of the Turks, now converted to Islam. Europe was stirred by the danger. The astonishing success of the First Crusade (1096-1104) was followed by the failures of the Second (1146-1187), and Third (1189-1192). The Fourth Crusade was diverted against Constantinople (1200-1205); shortly after, the Mongols appearing from the ends of the earth ravaged Armenia, and crossing the Caucasus, penetrated into Southern Russia in 1232. The great invasion followed in 1238—Russia, Poland, Hungary. At the\n\n11 A. H. Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, London, Murray, 1849.\n\n12 Stewart, The Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 1928.\n\n13 These have been collected by Assemanni, Bibliotheca Orientalis, Rome, 1728 (4 vols.). See also Mingana, The Early Spread of Christianity in Central Asia and the Far East, Manchester Univ. Press 1925, and Bull. of John Rylands Library, July 1925.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204470, "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-1962", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES \n\n91 \n\nwhich it had supplanted eighteen years before. Great hardship was encountered which is hardly surprising, and the people were eternally grateful to their benevolent officials and commemorated them in several temples dedicated in their honour. One of these was burned down in 1955 during the fire which destroyed Shek Wu Hui near Fanling, and others are to be found at Sha Tau Kok and Kam Tin, and Sai Heung in Chinese Territory. In addition a school was named in their honour at Kam Tin, and when it was repaired in 1744 the San On magistrate of the time composed a Confucian discourse which was inscribed on the wall of the restored building, to instruct the pupils and their parents. An interesting survival which still existed in 1898 was the appearance of an old beggar in the Yuen Long villages every Chinese New Year who brought statues of WONG and CHOW for the people to worship, and incidentally to supply him with food and money.'' To these men-become-gods for whom the construction of a temple was necessary to ensure their better worship and resulting favours, there must be added an equal and possibly much older faith in sacred tree spirits and the multitude of earth spirits known as pak kung ih, tai wong ★, and ordinary she taan 4, who look after villages and localities such as passes, bridges, and fords over streams.\n\nThis insurance with the spirits who ruled this world and would assuredly be encountered in the next was expressed in the continual reconstruction of temples. A great many of the temples in the New Territory to-day owe their present fabric, or a great part of it, to repairs made during the last fifty years of the Ching dynasty. It was evidently a highly necessary part of the proceedings that the god should be informed of the names of the contributors so that his benefits should not pass anyone by, since their names, and often the amounts they gave, were scrupulously inscribed on the commemorative tablet which was always let into the wall to mark the occasion. Sometimes over a thousand names had to be recorded in this way, most of them in respect of trifling amounts, even for a small and out of the way temple, as in the reconstruction of the Tin Hau temple at Cheung Chau in the second year of the last Ch'ing Emperor (1909).\n\nThe magistrate, too, was expected to play his part in warding off disaster. The District History mentions that CHAN Kuk", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204477, "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-1962", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "98\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\napproval. This authority, with powers of discretion, was given to the D.O. to help preserve the traditional way of managing land within the clan, and to provide a cheap and impartial arbiter in case of dispute.\n\n13 In Shek Pik village the TSUI, CHEUNG, HO and CHI clans owned 1.1, 0.39, 0.55, and 0.04 acres of agricultural land in 1898. With the exception of the HO clan, they were intact in 1959. The TSUI tso probably dates from the fifteenth generation, and is therefore three hundred years old. The FUNG clan in Fan Pui owned 9.2 acres in 1898 but this was sold in 1953.\n\n14 At Fan Pui I dealt with a disputed case of ownership in which the defendant stated that eight lots totalling 9,581 square feet of agricultural land had been specially set aside as joss and oil fields (shen you tian). Fields are also set aside for the worship of earth spirits. At Cheung Kwan O village in 1898 the two clans of CHAN and NG administered 1.41 acres of agricultural land under the name of a to tei wui. The rentals were originally devoted to the maintenance of the to tei or earth spirit who looked after the village, but for many years the revenue has simply gone to the clans. Many other cases are known at Mui Wo and Tung Chung.\n\n15 See Chapter III (iii) and (iv) of H. B. Morse The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1908) which is based on an article by Byron Brenan \"The Office of District Magistrate in China” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society XXII, (1897-98), 36-65, and incorporates his own wide experience of China and her officials in the course of over thirty years' service in the Imperial Maritime Customs. Brenan himself (1847-1927) had served in China from 1866 and was H.B.M.'s Consul-General in Shanghai 1898-1901. Of the district magistrate Brenan wrote, \"The magistrate is the unit of government; he is the backbone of the whole official system; and to ninety per cent of the population he is the Government\"; op. cit. p. 37.\n\n16 Papers 1899 p. 583.\n\nThe text of the stone tablet outside the Tin Hau temple at Kat O, referred to elsewhere in the article, uses this picturesque phraseology. Contrasting their sorry lot beside the power of the yamen officials they had written in their petition to the Viceroy \"We, civilians, whose lives are cheap as ants... who are we to start a lawsuit against the district yamen's worms?\" An interesting feature of this inscription is that it follows the customary form of Ch'ing document in which reference is made in the text to other papers, by summary or quotation, instead of the western method of adding enclosures. See John K. Fairbank, Ch'ing Documents, an introductory syllabus, (Harvard University Press 1952) p. 21.\n\n18 When I asked an old gentleman who graduated sau choi in 1896 about extortion and venality among magistrates, he replied in distinctly extenuating tones \"Some did; but then they had so many people to look after\". He observed that there were some rich districts in Kwangtung in which a magistrate had to do nothing to obtain money as it came rolling into the Office in the way of presents, inducements, additions to land and other taxes etc., whilst there were others which were so poor that the magistrate could squeeze very little from them even if he tried very hard. This is curiously echoed in Morse, Trade and Administration p. 92 “In Kwangtung we (the Imperial Maritime Customs) have regularly applied to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204480, "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-1962", "page_number": 112, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n101\n\nSee paras. 38 These feuds, often of long standing, persist to-day. 77-79 of Mr. K. M. A. Barnett's annual administrative report for 1955-56 as District Commissioner New Territories for a good instance of traditional hostility. For other cases see paras. 97 and 43 of the annual departmental reports for 1957-58 and 1958-59.\n\nSee Smith Village Life in China p. 286, also p. 222 \"The local Magistrates take care not to intervene too soon or too far, lest it be the worse for them. When the fight is over the officers put in an appearance, arrests are made, and the machinery of government recovers from its temporary paralysis\", and pp. 282-86 for a northern instance of clan violence.\n\n40 According to Dyer Ball Things Chinese (Hong Kong, Kelly and Walsh, 1903) p. 326 \"a dreadful internecine strife, in which 150,000 at least, perished, took place between the Hakkas and the Punteis in the south-western districts of the Canton province, from A.D. 1864 to 1866, and arms and even armed steamers, were procured from Hong Kong by both parties\". See also pp. 369-70 of B.C. Henry's Ling Nam (London, Partridge, 1886),\n\n41 From information supplied by elders of Ho Chung village who were at school during or before 1898.\n\n42 See the section on Disasters in the San On Yuen Chi.\n\n43 See stone tablet outside Tin Hau temple, Kat O, Tai Po district.\n\n44 From a stone tablet dated Ch'ien-lung 42/4/26 (1777) at Yuen Long Old Market.\n\n45 From a stone tablet dated Chia-ch'ing 7/3/23 (1802) at the Tin Hau temple, Kat O.\n\n46 From a stone tablet dated Ch'ien-lung 42/lucky month, lucky day (1777) at the Hau Wong temple, Tung Chung.\n\n47 From a stone tablet dated Tao-kuang 21/7/19 (1841) at Tin Hau temple, Peng Chau.\n\n48 From a stone tablet whose date is uncertain, at the Tai Wong temple, Yuen Long Market.\n\n49 Variously, as above.\n\n50 Reminiscences of Mr. TANG Kiu Fong of Fui Sha Wai near Yuen Long, in an article in the New Territories Weekly for January 1962.\n\n51 Tree spirits are quite common in the New Territories where many old trees have joss sticks and red paper inscriptions placed under them on a rough altar. There is, in particular, a very large old banyan tree at Long Kang a few miles east of Sai Kung Market which must surely be the oldest tree in the Southern District. This is visited regularly by devotees. From personal experience of every part of the old Southern District I can say with confidence that belief in tree and earth spirits still exists to-day, and might indeed be said positively to flourish.\n\n52 An ancestral temple is not open to the public: it is for the private use of the clan, for whom alone it has any meaning. Most villages of any age and consequence have ancestral temples, and in multi-clan villages", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204506, "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-1962", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n123\n\ngroup belonging to the K'ai Yuan period of the Tang Dynasty (713-742), and a few other coins from the Tai P'ing period of the Liao Dynasty (Tartars) which date from 1020-1031. A find of T'ang coins in conjunction with Sung coins shows that the former were in circulation in late Sung times.\n\nUnfortunately, as I hinted at the beginning of this note, there is no doubt that the delay in reporting this find has led to the loss of the greater part of both coins and porcelain. To give a known instance, it was reported from Macau, after a newspaper man there had seen the official press release which appeared in the Hong Kong papers, that over 1,000 coins had been bought recently from Hong Kong by a curio merchant. There is little doubt that these coins also came from Shek Pik, since it was reported that the coins were all of the Sung Dynasty and were covered with earth, which showed that they had been recently excavated. Many other coins must also be in the possession of workmen on the site or in the hands of people to whom they have sold them. An attempt has been made to recover these by means of a letter to the Chief Resident Engineer, but there has been no response so far to the appeal, despite his ready assistance.\n\nThe same is true of the porcelain, of which there appears to have been some quantity. Not surprisingly, the bulldozers smashed the porcelain to pieces and scattered it over a wide area. Some of the broken pieces are in the hands of persons at Shek Pik; others are still buried under the earth moved by the bulldozers, which extends over several acres of hillside; and about a hundred small fragments were recovered by the Team from Shek Pik. Portions of about twenty pieces of porcelain have been recovered to date; very small for the most part but enough to show by colour and shape that they were part of different pots. These fragments are characterised by their fine colour, good shape and the thickness and brilliance of the glaze.\n\nTo which period can the find be attributed? The last reign date recovered so far is of the period 1241-1253, which brings us to within twenty-five years of the fall of the dynasty. In the normal course of events it would, I think, be unlikely for porcelain of this quality to be found on Lantau which, so far as we know, was at this time barely inhabited by a handful of Chinese peasants", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204753, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE\n\n45\n\nis one important point to be cleared up. The Chinese are highly skilled farmers. Their techniques of land-winning and of irrigation change landscapes. So, alas, does their age-long war against trees. But since A.D. 900 the topography of this territory has been changed not only by human technique. There has also been a gradual, small, but identifiable and, I believe, measurable tilt of the surface of the earth along the axis of the four high peaks (the two on Lantao,37 Tai Mo Shan and Ng Tung Shan104) which has altered and is still altering the coast line. I leave it to geologists to say whether this is a necessary effect of what happens when the subsidence of a long straight shore meets a range of hills parallel to the shore (in which case it will be reproduced at many points of the Chinese coast), or whether it is a local peculiarity. It would also be interesting to fill in some of the chronological gaps and find out whether the two clear cases of recent river capture13 took place before or after the Chinese settlement. Until these gaps are filled up, I do not claim that the details of the shore line indicated on the map are authoritative, but they are not far wrong for the northwestern part of the territory, which was the part first settled by the ancestors of the Man94 and Tang.44\n\nYou will observe that the present Castle Peak and the mountain attached to it on the north42 were at that time an island, separated from the mainland of the New Territories by a sea channel which in A.D. 900 was probably very shallow but navigable. The traditions of the oldest villages leave no room for doubt that there has been a general uplift in excess of 5 metres in this area. The red line approximately follows the present 5 metres contour. The ground on both sides of the navigable channel was swamp, probably mangrove swamp, dotted about with small islands and intersected by creeks and streams. The first fort of which there is written record was known as Tuen Mun Chan141 and was almost certainly located at a point I have marked on the map,138 about three miles north of the present location called Tuen Mun.141 It would be an advantage if all doubts could be settled by excavation on the site, which can be seen even from the ground (and more clearly still from the air) to have contained old earth-works and possibly buildings.\n\nIt will be noticed that the present Sham Chun120 River had a much shorter course at that date, and the northern half of what", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204772, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "64 \n\nK. M. A. BARNETT \n\nNg \n\n103 Ngraahcrinn-chynn, \n\n104 Ngrhtrung-shaann, \n\nN. L. \n\n105 Ngrr-droi, £1 (+908—+959, with local variations). \n\n0 \n\n106 Obliterated villages:- Nai Tong Kok,101 Pak Hok Tuns and the original Tai Pak,35 some way from the present site. \n\nP \n\n107 Phuunniryh, #5. \n\n108 Preangzhaw, , an island five miles west of the western tip of Hong Kong Island. \n\n109 Preangzhaw, H, an island in the north-eastern part of Mirs Bay,41 \n\n110 Pre-Chinese languages: I should exempt from this stricture Professor Princeton S. Hsu,23 whose books, \"History of the People of South China”72 and \"A Study of the Thais, Chuangs and the Cantonese People\"133 are of great interest and should be read by anyone anxious to learn more in this field. But I think he goes too far in suggesting a Malay origin for the Tanka-or is it a Tanka origin for the Malays? \n\n111 Prengshaann, Ħ4. \n\n112 Pruunn-gwuur, 1. \n\nR \n\n113 River Capture. The break-through of the Kwun Yam Ho62 from the Lam Tsuen74 valley to Taipo:33 formerly it flowed through Fanling48 and Sheung Shui130 into Deep Bay;152 and that of the two streams which now flow into the sea at Sham Tseng,119 the headwaters of which used to flow through Tin Fu Tsai137 into Tai Lam.38 \n\n$ \n\nSei-braak, see 35, \n\n114 Shaahtraw-gok, YA★ · \n\n115 Shaahtrinn, 3⁄4w. \n\n+ \n\n116 Shaahtrinn-xoe, , still better known to the local people as Lik Yuen Hoi. \n\nShaamm-braak, E★ see 35, \n\n117 shaann-ghoh, Hakka saan-go, L. \n\n118 Shaannloo, \n\n#. \n\n119 Shamm-zearng, ##. \n\n+ \n\n120 Shamm-zeon, . The second word means an artificial channel with earth banks and suggests that the present river was cut to drain the swamps to the east and south-east of the present town. \n\n121 Shann Ngrrdroi-sir, ĦARK - \n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204821, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "104\n\nV. R. BURKHARDT\n\nIts speed gives the butterfly immunity from the collector except when feeding, or, in the case of the female ovipositing. The commonest food plant is Cretaeva religiosa, a deciduous tree with large clumps of white and yellow flowers. The larva, when irritated, draws in its legs and elevates its head and the forepart of the body. Its laterally swollen anterior segments and small head give it the aspect of a snake, the illusion being enhanced by a darting movement towards the intruder as if about to strike like a cobra.\n\nIn propagating its species the butterfly is very improvident for the females continue laying their eggs right up to December, when the leaves fall. Pupae and larvae in all stages consequently perish. There was a great dearth of this species in the autumn of 1962 as Typhoon Wanda, which struck the Colony on 1st September, stripped a large number of the Cretaeva trees. Though they were again in full leaf three weeks later the rhythm of reproduction was broken, and the same applied to the food plant. On the anniversary of the typhoon it again shed its leaves, and flowered a month later. In Stanley, at any rate, the females of H. glaucippe did not begin to frequent the tree till late summer, and the general scarcity continued throughout the autumn of 1963.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204844, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "122\n\nD. LESLIE\n\nto marry a Taoist naturalistic metaphysics to Confucian rationalistic ethics marks a great step forward, even though it was only partially successful.\n\nThe Taoism of Chuangtzu was anti-rationalistic and mainly destructive; destructive of ethics and also a hindrance to the development of logic and to the search for truth. Fung Yu-lan has characterised the Taoism of Huainantzu, as opposed to that of Chuangtzu, as positive. This is even more true of Wang Ch'ung, who eschews all mysticism and supernaturalism. Similarly, Hsüntzu's emphasis on the Way of Man, equal partner with Heaven and Earth, led him to ignore the Way of Nature. The crucial difference between Chou and Han philosophers is exemplified by the difference between Hsüntzu and Wang Ch'ung. Both reject any divine or supernatural intervention in natural phenomena, but only the latter sought to explain the workings behind these natural phenomena.\n\nTung Chung-shu of the Han had already given an explanation of such phenomena as the cosmic and biological abnormalities looked on as omens. By Wang Ch'ung's time these omens were almost universally taken to be warnings and messages from Heaven. Calamities, such as floods or drought or plagues of insects, were the punishments which followed when these warnings were not heeded. Wang Ch'ung cannot escape the Han view of an interaction between man and Heaven. But he changes the explanation. Good and bad omens are certainly signs of good and bad government but not caused by them,\n\nFor the Han philosophers phenomena were governed by the rise and fall of the ch'i, both cosmic and human. In the hands of Wang Ch'ung's contemporaries this ch'i was very close to shen* and ching-shen** \"spirit\". For Wang Ch'ung himself however, the ch'i is a material fluid, the \"life's breath” in biological terms, the \"pneuma\" in cosmic terms. It has no shape or form but only substance. The claim of modern materialists to see a forerunner in Wang Ch'ung is in many ways justified. It is supported in particular by his theories of causation. These are closely tied to his concept of a material ch'i. A physical cause must, he claims, be adequate for the result, and must operate by contact of the chi. Where there is no physical contact causation is not possible,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204875, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n153 \n\nthe cultivation of all plants whose names are qualified by the prefix faan,\" used for immigrants such as the tomato, the guava, the rambutan, one kind of melon, and the sweet potato. The peanut is not so qualified and it would appear that the prefix faan is used only for importations from the Pacific. The peanut bears no indication of foreign origin in its name. I do not know what it is called in the various dialects of Fukien, but Chinese books of reference refer to it as lok fa shang. The Cantonese name is fa shang, which is clearly an abbreviation of the former, while the Hakka name is ti tiu, which means earth bean. \n\nAgain it might be of some assistance if there could be recorded the names by which this plant has been known both in Arabia and in other countries of the Middle and Far East to which the Arabs introduced it. Another introduction, perhaps better described as a reintroduction, was the lemon. It would appear that the first Arab traders on their admission to Canton at the end of the sixth century took back with them the seeds of a plant then described in Chinese as yi mo (itself clearly a non-Han name) and from that plant developed and cultivated the now well-known lemon-shaped lemon which they called by the name Al-Laimûn which is the old Chinese name arabized by the common ending -n and the initial slurred with the definite article. The Cantonese then re-borrowed the Arabic name in the form of ning mung12 which we still use. Another Arabic word which was introduced into the language of Canton was the word amah, now familiar in the meaning of a Chinese female servant employed by a foreign family, which has nothing to do with the Cantonese word for grandmother2 but is a word for a female servant common to all the Semitic languages, including Hebrew it will be found in the Books of Exodus, xxiii. 12, Judges xix. 9 and many other places in the Bible. I suspect that many of the other words commonly used in Cantonese to express special relationships between Chinese and foreigners could also be found to have an origin in Arabic, Malay or other languages used by foreign traders in Canton before any Europeans were heard of: for example, sz tsai,16 sz tau,15 (which I think is the Arabic sayyid,1 fa wongł which is clearly the same word as the Urdu malik, originally meaning king and then gardener; kwun-tim,\" sz-naai14 and taipan3 If this surmise is correct, then these words are likely to have been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204936, "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-1965", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "# THE POPULATION OF CHINA \n\n37\n\nWhile so many elements of vitality are in a state of activity for the reproduction and sustenance of the human race, there is probably no part of the world in which the harvests of mortality are more sweeping and destructive than in China, producing voids which require no ordinary appliances to fill up. Multitudes perish absolutely from want of the means of existence; inundations destroy towns and villages and all their inhabitants; it would not be easy to calculate the loss of life by the typhoons or hurricanes which visit the coasts of China, in which boats and junks are sometimes sacrificed by hundreds and by thousands. The late civil wars in China must have led to the loss of millions of lives. The sacrifices of human beings by executions alone are frightful. At the moment in which I write, it is believed that from 400 to 500 victims fall daily by the hands of the headsman in the province of Kwang-tung alone. Reverence for life there is none, as life exists in superfluous abundance. A dead body is an object of so little concern, that it is sometimes not thought worth while to remove it from the spot where it putrefies on the surface of the earth. Often have I seen a corpse under the table of gamblers; often have I trod over a putrid body at the threshold of a door. In many parts of China, there are towers of brick or stone where toothless — principally female children — are thrown by their parents into a hole made in the side of the wall. There are various opinions as to the extent of Infanticide in China, but that it is a common practice in many provinces admits of no doubt. One of the most eloquent Chinese writers against infanticide, Kwei Chung Fu, professes to have been specially inspired by \"the God of literature\" to call upon the Chinese people to refrain from the inhuman practice, and declares that \"the God\" had filled his house with honors, and given him literary descendants, as the recompense for his exertions. Yet his denunciations scarcely go further than to pronounce it wicked in those to destroy their female children who have the means of bringing them up; and some of his arguments are strange enough: \"To destroy daughters,\" he says, \"is to make war upon heaven's harmony\" (in the equal numbers of the sexes): \"the more daughters you drown, the more daughters you will have; and never was it known that the drowning of daughters led to the birth of sons.\" He recommends abandoning children to their fate \"on the wayside\" as preferable to drowning them, and then says \"there are instances of children so exposed...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204956, "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-1965", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "THE DIALECTS OF HONG KONG BOAT PEOPLE\n\n57\n\nfor the modern KS vocalisms. These lists are selective and deliberately ignore a few exceptions, but without being exhaustive they do provide enough information to outline the origins of KS syllable types. The tones are not designated in these lists except in cases where the KS forms differ from or cannot be traced to their traditional categories. Normally these categories will be the same as for the identical word in SC.\n\n✔ a 'tooth', ma 'horse', ma ‘horse', 'melon, fa 'flower', -aithai 'too, extreme', ka ‘household'. A ka ua 'speech'. kai ‘intermediary', mai 'to buy', kai 'strange', fai ‘lungs', kai 'drawer', uai 'to oppose'. lai ‘mud', ai 'dangerous', -au pau 'satiated', au 'to bite', cau ‘to run', □ hau 'mouth', cau ‘wine', kau ‘nine', iau ‘young'. lat 'pungent', sat ‘to kill', at ‘a duck', cat 'mixed', chat ‘a brush'. cak ‘pluck', than 'watery', kan ‘to dare', can 'to cut off', 斬 kan 'barrier', -ak pak 'one hundred', hak ‘guest', -an lan 'south', -ang ang 'hard', san 'to disperse', san 'mountain', fan 'to turn back'. sang 'to give birth', cang 'to struggle', uang 'crosswise'. ie 'night', sie 'snake', ce 'word, character', 蛇 sie‘snake’, chei “dignified', (a surname), hei 'to go', 墟 'market, lei 'you', ei 'ear', fei 'to fly'. -ei hei 'to go', -et fet 'needy', set 'wet', ket 'quick, anxious', het 'blind', ŋ iet 'day', pet 'writing brush', phei 'skin', tei ‘earth', sei ‘to die', -en chet 'to go out', ffet 'Buddha', het 'black'. sen 'deep', len 'forest', then 'to hate', sen 'new', ien 'man', khen (and ken) 'near', & uen", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205008, "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-1965", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS \n\n107\n\nIn addition to the above merits over which it has no exclusive claim, Goodrich's dictionary has two special assets which are not commonly shared by other dictionaries. First, each character is immediately followed by its radical. This indication of the character's radical improves the value of the book as a tool for learning Chinese, especially for those who learn it by the inductive method. Radicals help the student understand the etymologies of the characters, and facilitate the process of associating the character and its meaning. Thus, they help, to some extent, remove that utterly 'lost' feeling which sometimes develops in the beginner who is tempted to think that Chinese characters are just so many arbitrary symbols.\n\nSecondly, abbreviated characters now in official use in Communist China are inserted in the new edition. This makes the dictionary particularly valuable to the student of contemporary Chinese problems, who must read source materials coming from Mainland China.\n\nNevertheless, the dictionary is not without its share of imperfection. It was probably considerations of space that led the author of this pocket-size book to keep the number of \"terms\" or \"expressions\" given as illustrations of the use of the various characters, to a bare minimum. Among its very limited number of illustrative expressions, some are obsolete or wrong or otherwise not commonly in use in China. The following are but a few examples:\n\nThe term shuikuo2 (or jui kuo2) (literally \"Shui-country\") given on page 177 to mean 'Sweden' is no longer in use at present. Chinese people coming across these two characters today would be at a loss as to what the user wants to say: Sweden (# shui tien3) or Switzerland (shui shih) or some obscure newly created state in some remote corner of the earth.\n\nThe expression hsi fu4 is given on page 71 to mean 'bride, wife'. This is a colloquial use confined to Peking and its neighbouring areas. Elsewhere in China, these two characters put together mean 'daughter-in-law'. Other expressions such as cha2 cheng1 for 'exerting oneself' (page 3) and cheng1 ching4 for 'wrangling' (page 39), which are in colloquial use in Peking, are unheard of in other parts of China. The usual related expressions in ...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205024, "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-1965", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n123\n\nhappened recently at Tong Fuk on Lantau Island, a multi-clan Cantonese village with a population of 198 at the Hong Kong Census of 1911. Its present population is about the same number. In 1958 the scheme to build a new reservoir at Shek Pik was confirmed and work went ahead on the dam and associated works. Behind Tong Fuk there were to be catchwaters for which an access road had to be constructed to the west of the village. This led to difficulties with the villagers, because in feng shui ideology the place was held to be the seat of the White Tiger. They therefore requested a ceremony known locally as a tun fu (符) — to propitiate the gods and spirits who would, as they thought, be aroused by digging earth and blasting stones in this particular place.\n\nPrecedents were cited by the village elders. They said they had carried out such a ceremony thirty-five years before, following several unexpected deaths in the village. The inhabitants had worshipped at the Hung Shing (廟) temple on the beach nearby, praying for the removal of the malignant influence. It transpired that a villager had cut stone from this particular spot to build a house. The elders then invited a Taoist priest — a Hakka — to come from one of the neighbouring villages to carry out the propitiatory observances usually made under such circumstances. They also said that a similar ceremony had also been conducted twenty years before in the adjoining Cantonese village of Shui Hau, this time by a priest engaged from the urban area. Deaths had also occurred there and had been traced to one of the villagers having constructed a cowshed in front of his house on ground with feng shui properties.\n\nReturning to the 1958 case, the elders proposed to call in the services of the nephew of the priest who had supervised the ceremony thirty-five years before. He was a man of forty years of age who had followed in his uncle's footsteps. Such persons are known locally as feng shui hsien sheng (風水先生).\n\nThis ceremony was supposed to cause considerable inconvenience for the villagers, in theory if not in practice. One week of vegetable diet was obligatory for all and there was also a three-day prohibition on entering and leaving the village: that is, if the ceremony was to realize its full value. This meant that no cows could be grazed or grass or firewood cut on the hills; nor, presumably, could men go out to work in the fields.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205025, "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-1965", "page_number": 133, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "124\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nFor the priest the ceremony was to involve two days' work: on the first day of the ceremony and on the last. On the opening day, I was told, he comes to the village and prepares various pots. Into each pot he puts five bamboo sticks. Each of these sticks carries an inscription which he writes especially for the occasion and is then covered with lucky red joss paper. Before being placed in the pot the sticks are dipped in the blood of a live chicken. The priest decides how many pots are required. The pots have then to be placed at various spots in the works area and must stay there until the offending operations have been completed. A procession of village people follows the priest to the places he has chosen to put each pot. With them they bring various articles for worshipping at each place such as candles, incense sticks, joss paper and offerings of food and drink together with chicken and roast pork, and fresh and preserved fruits.\n\nSince the object of the ceremony is to appease all the gods who may conceivably be offended by the proposed works, especially the local earth gods, the priest issues a general invitation to them to partake of the offerings. In so doing it is hoped to dispose them favourably towards the village despite the offence given by the works. It is interesting that the ceremony is not connected with either of the two village temples, one of them dedicated to Hung Shing and another inside the village wall dedicated to Kwan Tai (關帝) the god of war and agriculture. It only takes place on the hills and not inside these temples, although the effigies of their gods are taken around with the procession which deposits each of the pots.\n\nOn the conclusion of the engineering works the priest returns to the village. On this day each family prepares a plate of roast pork and chicken to thank the gods for turning evil away from them during the period of the work. The priest visits all the pots in turn, dismisses the gods and burns the pots.\n\nThis account is taken from my notes of what was supposed to happen during the ceremony. Pressure of other duties prevented me from seeing the ceremonies on either day... but I did see some of the pots in their appointed stations!\n\nA similar ceremony took place at Keung Shan near Tai O in 1960 during the construction of another road, and I know of two similar cases from the Sai Kung district in 1960/61.\n\nJ. W. HAYES", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205086, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "THE FIVE GREAT CLANS\n\n37\n\nMainland livestock. Rice cannot be grown to compete with the Mainland and Thailand. The vegetable revolution did not come early enough to alleviate the situation, and still has not spread wide enough to provide an answer. The clans one by one were forced to look elsewhere for income, and one after another began to send men overseas. While I have no figures to prove my point, it is clear that the order in which they succumbed to this process is in inverse order of wealth. In other words, the first to start sending people overseas were the Mans of San Tin, while the last were the Tangs of Kam Tin. The process of modernisation and rebuilding of villages throughout the New Territories shows the pattern in pictorial form. Some of what were previously poor, small villages are almost completely rebuilt now with a more modern style of house and many modern amenities. Then come the Mans of San Tin, whose large village is perhaps approaching one-quarter rebuilt with money earned overseas; and lastly comes Kam Tin, where the rebuilding has only recently started,\n\n97\n\nV\n\nMany writers on and observers of Southeastern Chinese society have drawn attention to the constant rivalry and feuding between clans in the area, and the New Territories have been no exception to this. In the past, and to a lesser extent now, the five clans have been rivals for power and influence in the area, the animosity between them at times breaking out into open warfare; but while rivalry and bad blood was the norm between the clans, they did draw together and cooperate when faced with danger from outside or with some other form of external stimulus. Two major historical examples of cooperation between the clans can be cited.\n\nIn 1662, the first year of the K'ang Hsi reign,99 all inhabitants of a wide strip of land on the Southeastern seaboard of China were ordered to move inland as part of a scorched earth policy formulated to help control pirate forces. All the five clans were involved in this evacuation, and it was not until seven years later in 1669—that they were allowed to return, and then only through the intercession and memorialisation of the throne of two high officials of the Kwangtung provincial administration, Chau Yau-tak and Wong Loi-yam.100 As thanks offerings to these two", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205107, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "58\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nas if the court historiographers and recorders recognized the importance of the mission. The Western horse, at least, impressed Mongols and Chinese alike. It was, if not one of the Flemish battle horses, certainly much bigger and stronger than the native breed of horses familiar to the Mongols. The court painter Chou Lang was commissioned to paint a portrait of the horse. This painting was still extant in the eighteenth century when the Jesuit Father Gaubil saw it; the Catalog of the Imperial Collections compiled in 1815 lists it. There is no trace of that painting left, but in a time when so many and sometimes stunning discoveries are made in China and Chinese archives we should not give up all hope of tracing this pictorial evidence of Giovanni da Marignolli's embassy. Apart from painting, there are many passages in fourteenth-century Chinese literature where allusion is made to the gift of Western horses to the emperor. Many poets of that time wrote poems praising this kingly gift and extolling the horse which, as one poet says, stood out like a camel among the other horses in the Imperial stables. At least a full dozen writers can be found who considered this horse important enough to be the subject of a poem. Almost invariably, allusion is made to the famous \"Heavenly Horses\" brought to China under the Han Dynasty from the Western Regions by Chang Ch'ien. Then, as under Shun-ti, the gift of a Heavenly Horse was regarded as an auspicious omen for the Imperial house and the emperor in particular. All this is completely in accordance with Chinese tradition. If far-distant countries send tribute, this shows that the Mandate of Heaven truly extends to the end of the inhabited world. One wonders what Giovanni da Marignolli would have thought, being the representative of the Vicar of Christ on earth, if he had known that his embassy served as the subject for a display of Sinocentric sentiment and an exhibition of pro-dynastic loyalty. The lucky omen of the Heavenly Horses turned out to be of not much avail, however. A few decades later, the emperor had to flee to the Mongolian steppes when the Ming troops took Peking. It remains, nevertheless, quite surprising that so many Chinese poets (there is hardly a non-Chinese among them) went to the length of writing hymns of praise of the dynasty when nobody forced them to, and it seems that at least among the literati, there was not yet much anti-dynastic and anti-Mongol feeling. In any case, it is striking how much this incident is treated in literature in a traditional Chinese way.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205196, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "146\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nunorganized group of individuals living mostly in the Manila area.\n\nBut, fifty years later the Philippine Chinese were an organized community with members in every part of the Philippines. The author concludes that the period 1850-1898 may be regarded as not only a critical era in terms of the survival and future of the Philippine Chinese, but as a necessary period of preparation for both closer bonds with China and the organization of the sophisticated Chinese Chambers of Commerce that were to follow.\n\nOf special interest is the discussion of Philippine foreign trade, especially regarding trade between Hong Kong and the Philippines during the nineteenth century. Due to the dearth of statistics and materials available concerning this trade with Hong Kong, the author was unable to measure its extent during the period covered by his book. This is an interesting subject in which students and scholars might conduct further research.\n\nReading Professor Wickberg's long-awaited book was a great pleasure. I would second Professor William Skinner's appraisal that the book does break new ground and that in \"terms of solid historical scholarship, it is superior to anything in the literature on the overseas Chinese of any country.”\n\nFoo TAK-SUN\n\nAN ANECDOTAL HISTORY OF OLD TIMES IN SINGAPORE, 1819-1867. Charles Burton Buckley. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1965. Two volumes in one; pp. xi + 790 + xxii; 19 illustrations. M$25.\n\nThis photographic reprint of Buckley's two volumes in one makes available once again an interesting and unusual sourcebook for the history of Singapore, first published in 1902 but long out of print. Essentially a scrapbook based upon newspaper articles, private papers and personal reminiscences, it contains a mine of miscellaneous information on Singapore affairs and personalities between 1819 and 1867. Outstanding events and issues of each year are recorded and discussed, ranging from the administration of Raffles, the growth of trade and shipping and the rise of business houses, to Chinese riots, piracy, man-eating tigers and amateur theatricals. The careers and activities of prominent European and Asian personalities — such as John Crawfurd,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205216, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "166\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ncase at Compensation Board hearings, following upon such resumptions.\n\nRods, acres and chains are unknown measurements in Hong Kong insofar as the Chinese farmer is concerned. He uses such measurements as mau (mou), tau chung (tou chung) and tam shui (tan shui) which besides being different words are also very different in area. A mau = 4.8 of an acre. This measurement is still used in mainland China but has been out of general use in the Colony of Hong Kong since at least the early 1900's. Here in Hong Kong the tau chung and the tam shui are the local measures.1\n\nEach Chinese village in Hong Kong has its own tau. Usually it is a wooden tub or boat-shaped container which holds approximately ten catties of rice seed. A catty is a Chinese weight of 1¼ pounds. The tau is therefore about 13.333 lbs., but could be more or less as there is no standard tau in use among the villages. Turning from the tau to the tau chung, the latter measure is the area of land required to grow one tau of rice seed.\n\nAgricultural land in Hong Kong is rated as first class, second class or third class, dependent on its water supply. First class land is well-watered land that will grow two crops of rice and a catch-crop in the off season, generally sweet potato. Second class land relies generally on rainfall for its water supply and is rated as medium grade land. Third class land is generally located on hillsides, is usually dry, and is used as orchard land or for growing ground nuts, millet and upland rice.2\n\nJust prior to the rice growing season which coincides with the southeast monsoon, padi nurseries are prepared here and there in the fields and the seed is scattered in a small nursery plot which grows very green and very thick. At the same time, the farmer gets out his buffalo and ploughs the padi fields in preparation for the planting. Each padi field is constructed so that it is at a slightly higher level than the one below it, which accounts for the terracing effect one associates with padi fields. The size and location of a padi field is governed by its ability to receive a gravity feed of water from its source. Each padi is surrounded by an earth bund in which outlets are made so that water flowing in from the top level feeds directly to the lowest level. With sufficient water in the lowest field the farmer plugs the bund outlet and allows the next level to fill until all the padis have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205217, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n167 \n\nsufficient water. The bottom of a padi field has an impervious layer of clay with a loamy layer of earth above it.\n\nNone of this work is done without first consulting a book called the Tung Shing(a) or Tung Shu(b), the “Universal Book\". This is the Chinese \"Old Moore's Almanack\", except that the Tung Shing does not prophesy world events but merely lists the day-to-day signs which indicate when a field should be ploughed, which are good days to wash hair, or when to conclude a contract, dig a well or plant fields. The book also lists the lucky hours of each day during which these events should be performed.\n\nThe lucky day and hour having arrived, the village womenfolk turn out with flat hoes and baskets. With the hoe, clumps of padi sprouts six to eight inches long are lifted from the nursery, placed in the baskets and carried to the padi field. If the field is first-grade land, then the clumps of padi seedlings are planted by pressing them into the mud in fairly thick clumps, about eight inches between clumps and in nearly straight lines. Should the land be rated as second-class, then the clumps are not so thick, although the spacing is about the same. In consequence, if one tau of seed was planted in the nursery, then by transplanting the sprouts into first-class padi land, a lesser area is required to grow that tau of seed than if it was transplanted into second-class padi land. However, in each case, the area of land required to grow the tau of seed is still called a tau chung. To the European mind, this method of land measurement is confusing, but regardless of these differing factors, the tau chung is the area on which tenant rentals are fixed, agreed, and paid.\n\nTo standardise these variants and to arrive at a reasonable basis on which to fix statistical information in the Colony, the Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry related the tau chung to the acre by declaring (about 1950) that in future, six tau chung would be considered as one acre. For most areas of the New Territories, this is accepted as a fair rate, being generally in line with old custom. Under this calculation, the tau chung becomes equivalent to 7,260 square feet.\n\nIt was then found that on the southeastern portion of the New Territories, a different type of measure was used, which reduced the tau chung from 7,260 square feet to 4,365 square feet. The various villages and areas which used this smaller", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205281, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "36 \n\nJEN YU-WEN \n\nAt the close of Southern Sung, the last two emperors had to flee and seek refuge by the shores of the sea, from where they led a hundred thousand odd officials and soldiers in the noble endeavour to restore the empire. The Kuan-fu area, with the three big characters Sung Wong Toi still remaining, commemorates one of the last portions of Sung territory on which the two emperors stood. Shortly afterwards they met their ultimate defeat and the whole country was lost to a foreign tribe for the first time in China's history. But what we commemorate is not this unfortunate event in our national history; it is the spirit of nationalism and patriotism displayed in the last struggle of the Sung patriots for the recovery of the mother country.\n\nThe independence and freedom of China had a higher claim to their lives. This unconquerable spirit, expressed in the unceasing revolutionary efforts of the Chinese people to fight against the Mongols ever since the last days of Kuan-fu and Ya-shan, was finally crowned with success in the overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty less than 90 years afterwards. Today, when we pass through the ancient site of the Travelling Palace and look at the Sung Wong Toi monument, we see the symbol of this same spirit, which is the essential quality necessary for the survival of any nation on earth.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 This lecture is a condensation of my Chinese article Sung Kuan-fu Hsing-kung K'ou (†‡3hB) published in the Continent Magazine (†\nA), Taiwan, September, 1966.\n\n2 Such as Ch'en Chung-wei, Erh-Wang Pen-mo (RR#i, =±**), Shu Mou-kuan, Hsin-an Hsien-chih (Chia-ch'ing), Gazetteer of Hsin-an District (**T. **\n**BA), K'o Wei-ch'i, Sung-shih Hsin-pien (MM. ER #), Chang Hsu, Ya-shan Chih (HM, AJA), Nan Sung Shu (ET).\n\n* Mother Yu was never again mentioned in historical records; probably she had died.\n\n4 For references, details and discussions on the royal itinerary from beginning to end, see my treatise Sung-mo erh-ti nan-ch'ien nien-lu k'ou (**=*64***) in Sung Wong Toi, a Commemorative Volume (edited and compiled by myself), Hong Kong, 1960, pp. 122-174 (X£b444).\n\n5 It is alleged that there were eight mountain ranges spreading over the peninsula which look like running dragons (lung), and that when the boy Emperor stayed at the place, people pointed out that he himself represented the ninth, as an emperor was commonly believed to be symbolized by a dragon. But the more rational and reasonable interpretation for the origin of the name would be that there are altogether nine mountain ranges spreading over the peninsula. According to Hsi-nan I Chuan (§§ AM) in Hou-han-shu (**後漢書**), the Ai-lao-i (‡‡✯ aboriginal tribe Lao) in Yunnan Province called back “k'ou\" and seat \"lung\". Hence to them, Kowloon meant", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205285, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "40\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nChinese by Mi-t'o-hsien tu, a monk from Tokhara in central Asia, who lived at Ch'ang-an (then capital of China) from 680 to 704, after which he returned home. These are the years when the Empress Wu (reigned 684-704) ruled the land. This fact\n\n武后 is important as the Empress foisted certain strange characters upon her Chinese subjects. One at least of these appears in the sutra: for (heaven; the elements sun, moon, and earth appearing inside an old form for ); this helps to establish the genuineness of the text. Now the stupa seems to have been erected at the same time as the temple itself, which was completed in 751. Unfortunately no date has so far been found on the text, as was the case in the above-mentioned Diamond Sutra of 868. There seems little reason to doubt the mid-8th century attribution, however, as the calligraphy of the scribe who brushed out the characters for the woodblock is like that of other literary remains of mid-T'ang provenance (found at Tun-huang and elsewhere), and the scholars reporting the discovery assert that the artifacts found together with the text showed no sign of a disturbing hand.\n\nIf then the date of 751 or earlier may be accepted, Korea has revealed evidence for printing which pre-dates the evidence from Japan. As may be recalled, the exact dates for the printing of the charms distributed by the Empress Shōtoku are not exactly known but they run between 764 and 770. (See the discussion in my revision of Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward, 2nd edn., Columbia University Press 1955, chapter 7.) Add to this another remarkable fact: both the Japanese empress and the unknown individual responsible for the printing at Pulguk sa made use of the same sutra. They must have considered that it had unusual powers. The main difference between the texts is that the Korean made much more use of it. His runs to twenty feet or more as against eighteen inches in the Japanese examples. The width of the two texts is almost identical (2 inches). These measurements may be compared with the sutras printed about two centuries later; one group, found in the pagoda of a monastery at Hu-chow (Chekiang) bearing a date equivalent to 956, and others found in the Thunder Peak Pagoda near Hangchow, dated 975. The first measured 2.5 inches in width (inner portion 1.95 ins.), length not specified; the second 2.8 inches wide and 6 feet 9 inches long. Incidentally the items dated 956 were also dhāranīs taken from the sutra translated by Mi-t'o-hsien.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205358, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT\n\n113\n\nThe temperature of the water varies at different times, and the several springs also differ in their temperature. The hottest of them is always of too high a temperature to allow of the hand being immersed in it, and at the time the traveller visited it, a thermometer immersed in it registered 108° Fahr. About twenty yards from its source is an artificial tank, which is used as a bath by people who are suffering from cutaneous diseases, who often return home cured.\n\nWhere the water is stagnant, deposits of sulphur are observed. The Chinese fancy that great treasures are concealed around these springs, and requested me to show them to them, they being of opinion that a foreigner is able to see several feet deep into the earth.\n\nThe inhabitants of the Sanon district are divided into the Pun-ti and Hak-ka; only a few speak the Mandarin or Hak-lo dialects. Some Hak-lo families are, however, employed in the imperial salt fields.\n\nA list of the Sanon villages was made about 40 years ago, and they then numbered 854; of these 279 were inhabited by the Pun-tis, and 275 by the Hak-kas. Many of the villages mentioned in this list are now deserted or destroyed, but many new ones have also appeared, and we may fairly say that their numbers have rather increased than diminished.\n\nThe Hak-ka villages are in many instances small clusters of houses, whilst the Pun-ti villages sometimes number from 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants. The Hak-kas dwell in the mountainous region of the eastern and more interior parts of the district, and are hence nick-named by the Pun-tis “Ngai-lu” ✯, or mountain-fellows; Pu-kakis the most important Hak-ka settlement; and in the western Hak-ka territory, U-shek-ngam #· a market-place at the foot of the Yeong-toi mountain, is of chief note.\n\nThe large plains previously noticed, are exclusively possessed by the Pun-tis. There are in the district forty places where markets are held; one-fifth of these only are possessed by the Hak-kas. Populous towns, such as Nam-tow, Sai-heong, and San-keaou, have spacious streets, where, every day, besides market days, large quantities of goods are exposed to sale.\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205381, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "136\n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\ncalled \"Sha-tau\"; or the Gods of the Earth and Soil, called “Pak-kung.\" Sometimes images represent these gods, but more commonly there is only a smooth stone to be seen on the altar.\n\nThe Monasteries and Convents are either Buddhist or Taouist. There are in Sanon about twenty-five Buddhist monasteries, which are inhabited by about seventy monks, and fifteen convents, which contain a like number of nuns. The most noted of the Buddhist monasteries is that of Wan-kai, near Sha-tsing, the abbot of which claims a sort of superiority over all the Buddhist establishments of the district. Some of these buildings are situated on hills, and command a fine view,\n\nThere are about twenty Taouist monasteries in the district, with some sixty priests who are engaged in medical practice, and in fortune-telling. They are more highly esteemed than their Buddhist brethren, and are employed in the temples, as is the case at Chik-wan. There are also establishments on Castlepeak, and on a mountain near Fuk-wing. On this mountain a renowned Taouist is said to have distilled the Elixir of Life, and then to have ascended to heaven. There are no nuns in the district.\n\nAs regards religion: \"The three different ways,\" as they are called by the Chinese, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taouism, all find their followers in the Sanon district. It must not however be supposed that the line of demarcation is strictly drawn, that a man must belong solely to one of these sects, for it frequently happens that the same individual embraces all three beliefs.\n\nThe doctrines of Confucius are taught in all the schools, and are firmly believed in as far as they go. But the great deficiency in the system of Confucius is, that it does not pretend to say anything of the state of the soul after death; and in consequence we find the staunchest adherents of Confucius take refuge with the Buddhist priests at the hour of death, and engage them to say mass for their souls, that they may gain admission into heaven,\n\nThe Taouist religion is had recourse to in any supposed case of need, as in sickness, or for the purpose of divining future events,\n\nThe Christian religion has been introduced into the province only a few years. There are some Roman Catholic convents in the district, but their number is not known. There is a Roman Catholic chapel at Tsin-wan, but no European missionary resides there. The first attempt at a Protestant missionary establishment...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205386, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "SALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG\n\n141\n\nof the soil is usually done in the evening and sprinkling with sea-water over the soil in the next morning. These processes are repeated for three to five days depending on the weather and the season. When enough salt is believed to have accumulated in the loosened soil after repeated sprinkling and evaporation of the sea-water, the soil is collected into piles and carried to the vat by coolies hired by the salt-farmer of the saline.\n\nFigure 2. A harrow employed for loosening the soil.\n\nThe leaching vat (figure 1, and figure 3) is an elongated hollow erection of earth about 50 to 80 feet long, 5 to 8 feet wide and 4 to 5 feet high. A narrow longitudinal canal is dug in the bottom of the vat and over this coarse twigs and dry grass are laid to serve as a sieve to prevent collapse of the prepared soil during leaching, figure 3, G and T. When all the prepared salty soil has been heaped up in the hollow space of the vat it is pounded with a very heavy wooden hammer into a mass of soil as compact as possible, figure 3, PSS. Having completed the task of compacting the prepared soil in the vat, sea-water is conveyed from the reservoir-pond behind to cover and to leach it slowly overnight in order to extract the salt.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205480, "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-1968", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\n17\n\nboth officials and people were encouraged to participate in the rites associated with them.\n\nThese god-officials, housed in temples in the chief cities of districts, counties and provinces, were often former government officials who had worked in the locality and people were encouraged to help in their selection. The gods were expected to report social misdeeds — evasion of taxes for example — to higher gods who could punish offenders by bringing misfortune. It is said those not afraid to perjure themselves in court were often afraid to do so before the gods, and so such cults encouraged obedience to law and order.13\n\nWhen these cults worked well they focussed people's interests on the administrative area of which their village was part and at the same time emphasized the position of the local village unit in the larger territorial administration. But temple-keepers and yamen clerks are said to have embezzled funds set aside for the rites and performed them in a perfunctory manner. The influence of such cults over villages more remote from city centres would probably, as with the cults to local worthies described above, be less than over nearby villages.\n\nBut the village itself was usually more directly connected with another god, to some extent operating independently of this spiritual hierarchy and standing more for local interests. This was the earth god: protector, in some of his roles, of such places as graves, bridges, rivers and canals, but also protector of a village unit or sometimes a section of a village. It is said that the earth god was usually somebody who had rendered local public service in his former human life.14 The earth god's cult was more usually associated with an open shrine than a temple, with his image being placed on the ground. His festival commonly generated a great deal of group activity: various occupational groups in a village would collect money to contribute to the festival's religious and social functions and would “elect” one of their number to serve on the committee formed to organize the festival.\n\nWhile it appears unusual for the cult of the earth god to have become associated with a complex land owning organization with control over a village or village section as in the case of ancestral cults, cults to other popular gods sometimes did so. Temples built for gods who had special meaning in the life of a village", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205494, "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-1968", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\n31\n\ning divided sects, in the nineteenth century) leaders were required to travel about the country recruiting members and raising money.\n\nLeaders had to have some education, not only to pass examinations but also to write scriptures and sutras encouraging members to join and explaining the purpose of religious practices. Literacy was needed for reading and writing messages (sometimes sent even today in elaborate codes) to leaders in other areas. In some sects degrees could be purchased but a leader would have little power unless he were at least literate.\n\nThe sects however offered various attractions. Some offered to bestow degrees on ancestors of members bringing money or honour or power to the sect (T’ung-shan She, a non-vegetarian sect existing in Singapore today, still does this). And it was expected that leaders would take a percentage of the moneys they collected. Sectarian ideologies were sometimes likely to appeal to scholars. Although syncretic they could be quite sophisticated. Sometimes items of ideology were revealed by gods during seances using automatic writing, a type of seance popular as a past-time with elderly educated gentlemen in traditional China. A common Chinese notion was that social and natural disorders were the result of earth being out of phase with heaven. Sectarians often emphasised that this came about when leaders of the country lacked virtue and failed to teach the Truth stemming from Heaven. When the emperor lacked virtue there were national disasters; when local officials were corrupt, local catastrophes, floods and droughts were a result.\n\nIdeology provided, then, an explanation and even suggested action when the conditions of life deteriorated, which might be attractive to both scholar and the ordinary man experiencing hardship. Vegetarian halls, like those of the Buddhists, provided a home for the unattached; there was one in Hankow which provided for destitute and unattached seamen in their old age.3\n\nOne might expect the leaders of sects to be, then, individuals with some education and time on their hands; perhaps those with frustrated ambitions, looking for ways for compensating for their lot in secular society who desired degrees and administrative power; those feeling they had better qualities and more virtue than local officials; persons sensitive to wrongs and injuries and not tied too closely to gentry codes of behaviour and not too re-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205504, "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-1968", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\n6 Ibid., p. 329.\n\n41\n\n7 When carrying out research on lineage villages and communes in 1964 by interview of immigrants in Hong Kong, I questioned respondents on the surname composition of their village of origin. In many cases it was stated that people of a single surname lived in the central part of a village and those of other and various surnames lived beyond boundaries of old village walls, or beyond their previous location where they had been pulled down.\n\n8 Freedman, Lineage Organization, p. 105. But he adds that politically and ritually the lineage was a centralized unit within which the peace could usually be kept.\n\n9 Hsiao, op. cit., p. 329.\n\n10 Ibid., p. 227. As early as the eighteenth century it was found necessary to scrutinize names recommended carefully. It was suspected that officials serving in the imperial capital and who came from the same province as the persons under consideration were inclined to favouritism.\n\n11 Ibid., p. 228 and p. 229.\n\n12 Ibid., p. 228.\n\n13 Ibid., p. 225.\n\n14 On the earth god see E. T. C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1932) pp. 527-528.\n\n15 Some of these were deified Sung and Ming figures of note and not all stood for solidarity with the Ch'ing dynasty.\n\n16 See his Village Life in China: a Study in Sociology (New York, Fleming H. Revell Co., 1899) pp. 136-138.\n\n17 Hsiao, op. cit., p. 226.\n\n18 Ibid., p. 278.\n\n19 Ibid., p. 279.\n\n20 Op. cit., p. 138.\n\n21 For example, Hsiao, op. cit., p. 280.\n\n22 Ibid., p. 279.\n\n23 Ibid., p. 281.\n\n24 Ibid., p. 231.\n\n25 Ibid., p. 230.\n\n26 Cf. Chan Wing-tsit, Religious Trends in Modern China (New York, Columbia University Press, 1953) p. 81.\n\n27 Some aspects of Buddhist \"kinship\" are discussed in Holmes Welch, \"Dharma Scrolls and the Succession of Abbots in Chinese Monasteries\" T'oung Pao, vol. L, Liv, 1-3, 1963, pp. 93-149. At the time of writing this paper little else was available on this form of organization in the published literature and I rely largely on my own research notes and documents shown to me during this research. Since that time Welch has also published The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900-1950 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967) and chap. IX particularly has additional relevance.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205506, "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-1968", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\n43\n\n46 Chiang, ibid., p. 17.\n\n47 Ibid., pp. 45-47.\n\n48 Hsiao, op. cit., p. 233.\n\n49 The White Lotus certainly appears to have been a sect, or rather the name taken by certain sects of Hsien-t'ien Ta Tao at times when they engaged in militant activities, rather than a secret society. See \"The Great Way... op. cit., p. 386ff for evidence connecting the White Lotus with Hsien-tien sects.\n\n50 See for example G. Schlegel, Thian Ti Hwui, The Hung League or Heaven-Earth-League (Batavia, Lange & Co., 1866).\n\n51 Freedman, Lineage Organization, ..., op. cit., p. 121.\n\n52 It might be noted here, and also in respect of the discussion on p. 35 on religious qualifications and military efficiency that some Hsien-t'ien sects were organized into what they termed Yin and Yang affairs. The nature of these \"affairs\" is somewhat obscure but sects often changed names when performing activities under one or other of these terms, this being one reason for the multiplication of sect names (see \"The Great Way.. op. cit., p. 378 and p. 384). The introduction of such divisions may have been an attempt by sects to organize themselves for practical affairs, including rebellion, as well as religious matters. Yin \"affairs\" might perhaps have dealt with esoteric religious matters (Yin dark, obscure) and Yang with secular matters, and perhaps they had more practical men to organise them. It is interesting to note that the main organisers listed by De Korne for T'ung-shan She in his The Fellowship of Goodness (T'ung Shan She): a study of contemporary Chinese religion (Grand Rapids, Mich., private publication, 1941, mimeo) does not include the patriarch himself who is hardly mentioned by him. Organisers were all practical men of affairs. The man given by De Korne as main organiser appears, in fact, on records of this sect (which is actually an off-shoot of Hsien-t'ien Ta Tao) in Singapore, as only one of the five top-ranking administrators. It may well be then that in seeking to engage in practical affairs (T'ung-shan She was involved in political machinations in this century although not actual rebellion) the religious leaders were sometimes kept in the background and other kinds of persons were in de facto charge.\n\n53 Hsiao, op. cit., p. 309.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205511, "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-1968", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "48\n\nT. J. LINDSAY\n\nOne point that shows up in the accounts is the speed of coaling at Singapore. In 1880 Glencoe loaded 1,130 tons in 103 hours, in 1882 Sterling Castle 1,600 tons in 10 hours, in 1884 Glenogle 1,500 tons in 62 hours. Moyune 700 tons in 5 hours in 1887 as against Glenogle 1,200 tons in 5 hours in the same year. The “Glen\" figures of 220 tons an hour in 1884 and 240 tons in 1887 are remarkable.\n\nWhat of the conditions in these ships racing home? The stoke-hold must have been almost unbearable, so it is no wonder that difficulties with the stokers were reported. In 1882 there was trouble culminating in Singapore when a stoker of Glenogle struck the Chief Engineer. When a European shore policeman came on board the 31 stokers threatened but the policeman \"took his stand in the most daring manner and fairly cowed the men by his determined demeanour\". At Hankow, too, there was trouble in 1883 when some of Glenogle's crew were reported to have mutinied and the Navy had to be called in to deal with the situation.\n\nPassengers, too, had something to complain of. On one occasion in Singapore when two or three passengers had been granted conditional passages they found the saloon and every state-cabin crammed with tea.\n\nConditions in the China tea trade were about to change. In 1881 the North China Daily News wrote:\n\n“It is not so many years since China was the only tea producing country. It was sufficient then for the buyer to watch the deliveries at home and the export from China, to be guided, with little chance of error, in his operations. But the fatal energy of our race has reared up in British India a frightful rival to the Flowery Land, and India not only demoralises China by sending opium here, but demoralises our tea markets by sending tea in increasingly enormous quantities to London. There are no squeezing Mandarins in India, there is European supervision in packing and the firing of the leaf, and the plantations are connected with civilization by the railway and the telegraph. Everything is done to give India an unfair advantage over China. Java is competing too, and Ceylon is threatening. As yet Indian tea is hardly taken on the continent of Europe at all, but here too it will penetrate sooner or later, as it is doing into America and Australia, and then there will be no corner of the earth where the sway of China tea will be undisputed.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205530, "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-1968", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "67\n\nFURTHER NOTES ON THE SUNG WONG T'OI\n\nW. SCHOFIELD*\n\nThe very interesting paper by Professor Lo Hsiang-lin on the Sung Wong T'oi and the travelling courts of the Sung Dynasty, in Volume III No. 2 of the Journal of Oriental Studies,† and the partial wrecking of the historic site by the Japanese in the war,‡ have prompted the writer to put on record some notes made during the years 1918 and 1937 on the earthworks, inscriptions and relics found by him on and near the site, which may help to supplement Professor Lo's paper. In what follows the hill is described as it was in 1937, as the writer has not seen it since 1938.\n\nIt is a crescent-shaped hill, convex towards the east, where it rises steeply from the beach to a height of nearly 40 metres. It commands a good view of the south slope of the Kowloon hills and the plain beneath, the east half of the harbour, and of Lyemun channel and the west end of the Fat Tau Mun channel beyond, except for a few hundred metres at its north side by Slope Island (see Plate 5). A watch-tower on its summit would provide an observation post well over 40 metres above sea level. The concave side, on which lies the main path to the top, is terraced for cultivation up to 15 or 20 metres.\n\nThe objects investigated on and near the hill can be classed in three categories, earthworks, inscriptions, and pottery and other objects, and will be dealt with in that order.\n\nThe Earthworks (see sketch plan at Plate 3)\n\nThere are signs that the hill was formerly fortified. On its top from the south end above the 20 metre contour as far as the great inscribed rock on the summit, there is a gentle rise from which the ground falls away steeply to the east, and rather less so to the west and south. At the south end of the ridge traces of a bank at the edge appear to form a rough semicircle, presumably as a flank defence, for a clearly defined earth bank about a metre high by three or four wide at the base runs northward from it nearly straight along the centre of the hill crest to a point near the south-\n\n*See biographical note at the end of this article.\n\n† Published by the Hong Kong University Press, May 1958. [See also Mr. Jen Yu-wen's article \"The Travelling Palace of Southern Sung in Kowloon\" in JHKBRAS, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 21-38. Ed.]\n\nMr. Schofield writes in the present tense, Unfortunately the hill has now disappeared completely, what was left by the Japanese being removed for the airport extension about 1958. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205531, "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-1968", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "68\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\neast side of the inscribed rock. Here it bends at an obtuse angle and reaches a large boulder east of the rock, thus providing flanking fire in support of the defenders of the bank to south (see Plate 4). Beyond the boulder its course is less easy to follow, but it probably runs north-west about 30 metres, and then north again, past the inscribed boulder, and following the steep edge of the hill, for some 70 metres. Here it bends west at a right angle and becomes a large earth rampart, with a front face to north about 5 metres high protected by a ditch, now partly silted up, about 1 metre deep at its outer edge, where the counterscarp rises; the throw-out from the ditch forms a short glacis in front merging into the hill slope.\n\nThe rampart and ditch run about 55 metres across the north declivity of the hill ridge, cut at two points by modern paths (see Plate 6). At intervals of 20 metres behind it two smaller banks, parallel to it, cross the hill, both ending where the slope steepens to west: the more northern one has a short length of bank running north and south at its west end, which represents the only discoverable trace of the hill's western defences, for field terraces of later date appear to have destroyed the rest of them.\n\nThe Inscriptions*\n\n1. The well-known principal inscription on the hill, today standing in the Sung Wong T'oi park, needs no further notice here, as Professor Lo has dealt with it.\n\n2. On a small stone on the north side of the hill crest is an almost illegible inscription of seven, possibly more, characters, which the writer copied as follows:\n\n宋(or本)\n\n£\n\n?\n\n公\n\n??\n\n+\n\nIt may be conjectured that this was part of an earlier commemorative inscription.\n\n3. On a squared pillar of local granite standing on the west side of the hill, facing a rocky hill a mile away, about 85 metres high;\n\n泰山石敢當\n\nThis was probably put up by someone in an effort to correct the Fung Shui of a grave.\n\nThe next three inscriptions noted are certainly grave inscriptions, showing the hill was used for burials up to recent times.\n\n*The approximate whereabouts of each inscription is shown by its number on the sketch plan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205685, "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-1968", "page_number": 227, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "Plate 5. View of mouth of the Ma T'au Ch'ung from the top of \n\nSung Wong T'oi, 15th May 1937.\n\nPlate 6. Sung Wong T'oi. Earth ditch and rampart. North side of \n\nhill; in N.E. corner. Kowloon Peninsula. About 1927.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205767, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "to P&Q.100M. North of O\n\nTUNG KWU ISLAND\n\n67\n\nN\n\nN\n\nRocks\n\ndecomposed granite;\n\nRocks\n\nPresent edge of old surface\n\nBeach\n\nRolling stone\n\n0 5 10 20 30 40 50\n\n100 M.\n\nof earth\n\n70 M\n\n& rock\n\n10 M\n\n10M\n\nBeach\n\n35M\n\nFig. 1. Tung Kwu; sketch map of the isthmus redrawn from Mr. Walter Schofield's field notebook. (Exact date of original not known, but done 1930s and before 23 February, 1938 when an additional entry was made and dated).\n\n10M", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205776, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "76\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nOther stamped designs of various kinds, curves, ovals, paired spirals, chevrons, etc., lie at an average depth of 127 cm. Sherds without patterns numbered 33, distributed at all depths averaging 115 cm. Many are jar rims or come from jars with equatorial ridges, plain above and patterned below, so that statistics would be useless. Some of these were food vessels buried beside the dead, of very fragile material, broken in fragments as they lay buried by the weight of earth and sand piled on them, but still keeping their upright position. Two such, as well as the only perfect jar found, came from the north extremity of the west beach, under the hill, so that earth washed off it adds to the measured depth of the vessels. This averaged 161 cm. for the three vessels, 40 cm. below the 122 cm, which was the chief culture level.\n\nThis area probably served at one time as a cemetery of the early inhabitants. The complete jar was partly filled with decayed granite rainwash, lying against the side of the vessel when I found it at the foot of the low cliff. No stratum level could be assigned to it, but its perfect condition shows it could hardly have dropped from any great height and was most likely washed out of its matrix by rain and fairly gentle wave action. Its form is worth noting. Below the plain, slightly flared lip, pinched into two rough spouts on opposite sides, it expands gradually to the ‘equator'. Above this it is undecorated: below, a neatly impressed network of vertically arranged rhombs covers the rest of the body surface, in each mesh a raised stud which I interpret as a watching eye, or the pupil of an eye. The base is hollowed into a dinge for stabilising the vessel and is also ornamented.* The food vessel in grave IV at Shek Pik, of coarse pottery, also had stamped ornament, and two spouts on the rim.†\n\nThe distribution in depth of soft pottery bearing stamped designs other than net patterns shows a certain slight degree of concentration around the 122 cm. level, with three above and three below it: they number only eight. All but one were found in the sand sectors of the site. The only tentative conclusions that may be drawn are that such designs were less favoured for funerary pottery than the net patterns, and that they were known\n\n*This jar is illustrated at Plate 5.\n\n† See Schofield, op. cit., p. 269, cxxi.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205855, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n155\n\nas it stands though I have changed the position of a few sentences dealing with the gate in order to put all description of it in one paragraph. The words in italics are editorial additions. As mentioned elsewhere in this number, Mr. Schofield died in December, 1968, I did not have the benefit of discussing the note with him. Ed.\n\nThis wall commands the path from Kowloon Tsai to Kowloon City, at the top of the pass which rises about 150 feet above the plain by Kowloon City: i.e. it faces due East. It runs on the North, up the hill, and curves slightly to North West for the last 15 yards of its length. At its highest, it is quite 80 feet above the path. On the South it descends the hill for only 30 feet or so, and is very ruinous.\n\nNearly all of it is built of 'chunam',* laid on in layers 5 inches or so thick, and with a coping of the same material which is ridged - not rounded. The wall rises in 'steps', following the hill slopes, and keeping an average height of 10 feet. The middle of the wall is sometimes hollow; this hollow, where seen, being 2 or 3 inches across, and having thin slabs of granite in it.\n\nTwenty yards East of and behind the gate on the path, at the top of the pass is a screen wall (to keep out devils), of rough polygonal blocks mortared with 'chunam' and plastered over. It is 30 inches thick.\n\nThe gate itself is of granite slabs mortared together, a massive buttress each side and a platform on top. This is narrow; the floor is two thicknesses of granite slabs. The wall of 'chunam' runs across the top of the gate, and is 6 feet high. The main wall is quite 30 inches thick. The gate has holes for 7 wood bars, square at the bottom (for 'earth') and round at the top (for 'heaven'). The gate measures 6 feet through the masonry, and the granite blocks are large and well squared, the whole thing very massive. Steep steps lead up on the right of the gate to the platform. The earth for 3 or 4 feet outside the gate is held up by a granite retaining wall for 4 feet outwards from gate.\n\nOn each side of the gateway this wall is pierced by a low, square loophole lined with blue bricks, suited only for a musket\n\n* E. C. Bridgman's Chinese Chrestomathy in the Canton Dialect (Macao, S. Wells Williams, 1841) p. 204 has this description of Chunam, \"Chunam is an Indian word for lime, but in China it is applied to a mixture of lime and oil, used for caulking boats and junks; the mixture of lime, sand and oil, which is so commonly used in this country for floors and walks instead of a pavement is called Fúi Shá, or sanded lime.\" Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206024, "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-1970", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "A NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES\n\nI\n\n99\n\nnowadays marked off by punctuation; and we are left to guess how far the pattern of stress and accent in modern jargon the “superfixes” — which in the spoken languages of today serve to break what is said up into words and phrases, still runs (like so many other features of this family of languages) on the same rails as ran Sanskrit and the Zend-Avesta.\n\nModern English has virtually got rid of cases, except in the personal pronouns; of tenses, except present and past; of voice and mood; it never had aspect; it lost its genders way back; number is inconsistently sketched. And the spirit of the language leads away from the dependent clause (hypotaxis) to the parallel clause (parataxis) preferred in the Celtic languages.\n\nWhile thus losing some precision, English has gained in flexibility; we shall see later, it would not be unfair to say that English has become more Chinese and in particular, words can be switched from one class to another with a facility rare in this highly formalized family of languages.\n\nThus the common verb \"to fall\" meaning to move towards the earth's centre, besides the regular pattern of fall, fell, fallen and the verbal noun falling also makes a noun fall, meaning the event of falling, or a quantity of snow or rain which falls; falls, meaning water flowing down over rocks, overfalls meaning much the same in the sea, fallout, a modern term meaning particles of radiation which come down like invisible rain, and outfall meaning the end of a pipe where other particles, but not of radiation, are discharged into the sea.\n\nTo a foreigner attempting to learn idiomatic English the logic of some of these compounds can be bewildering. A homecoming is much the same as coming home; but upsetting is the very opposite of setting up; and if a competitor is played out the result may be that he is outplayed, only to be once again both played in and played out with musical honours at the prizegiving.\n\nThis is perhaps as far as I should go on the first half of my theme, which recounts difficulties in the acquisition of idiomatic English by those whose mother tongue it is not. They have to learn the rules before they can safely begin to break them, whereas the English don't bother to learn the rules and go by the \"feel\" of the language: though, indeed, they might find it easier if they did learn the rules, beginning with the rules of Latin and Greek.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206101, "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-1970", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "176\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nis not an effective way of fighting pirates to give up territory, such useless tactics have never been heard of before in history.”\n\nThe hypocrisy of the official excuse is also pointed out by the scholar Ch'ü Ta-chün, author of a book on Kwangtung province30 which contains many satirical comments on the Manchus. He writes:\n\n“A Manchu self-styled official arrived who proclaimed himself greatly concerned with the protection of the people from marauders. The fact of the matter was of course that Formosa remained unconquered.”\n\nThe evacuation was announced by a proclamation giving the people three days in which to remove behind a boundary which had been set up roughly 50 li from the coast. This was disregarded and soldiers had to be marched in to drive the people away. At the same time the coastal defences were organised into a line of fortifications only a few miles from each other. Many of these mounds of earth and stone must still be visible on the hills. The people evacuated had no food or lodging provided for them. The fishing boats were prevented from entering or leaving the rivers by a line of stakes set across them. There appears to have been no attempt at organising relief. Some local magistrates tried to assign places for the refugees to live but there was too little land available for such a vast number. As a result, large numbers died, others trekked inland; whilst a good many managed to avoid the boundary guards and returned to their villages.\n\nA second and more stringent evacuation then took place. The boundary was placed even further inland and everyone was made to leave their homes. Twenty-four villages whose population remained were severely punished and the people were threatened with death if they returned. A large number died from ignorance of the official decrees since they were not adequately circulated and not all could read them. The soldiers after removing the population had instructions to pull down the houses and build forts and towers with the bricks. Ch'ü Ta-chün describes the distress over the boundary as follows:\n\n30 廣東新語 - 屈大鈞著", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206115, "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-1970", "page_number": 195, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n189 \n\nMossman's China, A Brief Account of the Country, its Inhabitants, and their Institutions, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London about 1867 (no date is given on the frontispiece but the contents date it to this period, see e.g. p. 60). It is the first I have come across that provides any detail, though E. Watson's The Principal Articles of Chinese Commerce (Import and Export), published at the Inspectorate-General of Customs, Shanghai 1930, deals with the various types of Hemp and Ramie under the general head of Ma (麻) between pp. 50 - 59. \n\n\"Hemp, or, more properly speaking, fibres analogous to those of the plant which we know by that name, are extracted from several indigenous plants in China: these no doubt formed the first textile fabrics worn by the Chinese, as they did of other ancient civilized races. Since the introduction of cotton, however, the cultivation and manufacture of these fibres is limited to the finer sorts, called by the English grass-cloth. This is principally made from a plant belonging to the Urtica, or nettle family, named ma by the Chinese. In cultivating it, great care is taken in the selection of the seeds, and in preparing the soil. The former when gathered are packed in jars with sand or dry earth. A loose dry soil is selected; the ground is well ploughed, manured, and divided into beds, about eight yards long and one wide, whereon the seed is thrown broadcast, and earth is swept over it with a broom. Before it sprouts, a framework with matting is laid over the beds, to protect them from the fierce heat of the sun in June. When three inches high they are transplanted. Being perennial they are carefully tended during the winter and spring; and in the third or fourth year are ready for cutting. The plant is also propagated by roots, and yields three crops annually, the first in June, when the blades are comparatively short; but in a month or two they are seven or eight feet high, when the second cutting takes place. The latest crop is cut in September or October, from which the finest cloth is made; the first being inferior, coarse and hard. On being cut the leaves are soaked in water for an hour, and the fibre stripped by breaking in the middle; whilst the operator, generally a woman or a child, separates the filaments skilfully from one end to the other with the finger-nails. The next process is scraping the hemp with a knife by drawing the strips over the blade from within outwards, taking off all the mucilaginous parts; then it is rolled up into bundles, exposed for a day \n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206126, "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-1970", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n199 \n\ntide and is reached by a single bamboo ladder. The verandah is railed, and is sometimes covered and sometimes not. The shed stands on five pairs of piles, the front two of bamboo and the other three of local granite. The roof is pitched and normal save that it is covered with palm leaves and not with tiles. The hut itself is made entirely of wood.\n\nIt will be seen from the plan that the main part of the shed has three partitions to provide four rooms, each of which has a door and two windows, one at each side of the room. The kitchen is on the right-hand side of the first room leading off the verandah with a hearth, fuel beside it, and an altar to To Tei (1), the earth god and to Tso Kwan, (#) the kitchen god. [The notebook does not say of which material the hearth was, but it was presumably of brick or stone in a wooden dwelling.] The next room was apparently used as a bedroom by the master [and presumably mistress] of the house; the third was given over to the ancestral altar, that, like the kitchen altar, was set against the east wall; whilst the fourth and last room was used by a married son and his wife. Inspection of neighbouring sheds also shows the cooking place and ancestral altar on the east side.\n\nOn the day of the visit it happened that a new shed was being built nearby. See Fig. 2. [The structure was new though it could have been a reconstruction on old piles.] It was rather smaller than the one just described, measuring 7′ 6′′ wide and 18′ 6′′ deep with a 'round roof' (sic). There was also a verandah-to-be, not yet constructed. From this verandah a door led into one large room. This had a side door onto an open platform that ran outside and along the full depth of the main structure. Beyond the main room was a second, smaller one, with a window opening onto the open platform. There were three pairs of stone piles for the main structure. Again it appears that the cooking was to be carried out on the east side, but this time on the open platform.\n\nThe structure was entirely built of wood, with bamboo slats supporting the roof. The roof beam was already in position and from the centre hung over and down from it a red cloth with a single \"cash\" or Chinese copper coin at each corner, put over it and pinned. In addition two oranges hung over it at one edge.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206212, "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-1971", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO\n\n23\n\nas a creed, or ethics, that the world ever witnessed.\" Warming to his task, Harvey declared: \"The first impression of a sensible and reasoning Englishman, on coming into contact with Taepingdom is one of horror, then of amazement, with contempt and disgust following each other in succession. Taepingdom is a huge mass of 'nothingness'... It is a gigantic bubble, that collapses on being touched, but leaves a mark of blood on the finger.” In such light, Harvey's advice was simple: \"Your Excellency may rest assured that we shall only arrive at a correct appreciation of this movement, and do it thorough justice, when it is treated by us as land piracy on an extensive scale — piracy odious in the eyes of all men — and, as such, to be swept off the face of the earth by every means within the power of the Christian and civilized nations trading with this vast Empire.\"\n\nIn his dispatch to London of April 10, 1862, British Minister Frederick Bruce enclosed Harvey's \"very able report” and added: \"No commerce can co-exist with their presence, and no specific relations are possible with a horde of pirates and brigands, who are allowed to commit every excess, while professing a nominal allegiance to an ignorant and ferocious fanatic.\" In another dispatch eight days later Bruce emphasized this theme saying that the presence of the Taipings in any district is \"accompanied by the utter destruction of the materials of trade.\"19 Thus all evidence to the contrary from Ningpo and elsewhere of Taiping efforts to encourage trade were totally ignored, to be drowned out as a matter of fact, by such sustained propaganda, so that the impression has remained ever since that the Taipings were somehow anathema to commerce.\n\nThus the stage was carefully being set for the climax. The British, with the French, awaited the opportune moment, or more precisely, an opportune pretext. This came on April 22, 1862. The occasion was the triumphant return to Ningpo of General Fan who had been away at Nanking. During a cannon salute, unfortunately aimed in the direction of the foreign settlement, some shots reportedly killed one or two Chinese within the settlement, although the report itself seems questionable. On the same day, some Taiping soldiers fired musket shots toward the H.M.S. Ringdove. The ship's Captain immediately protested, and the very responsive Taiping General Huang replied apologetically, on the very same day, promising punishment for the offenders.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206386, "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-1971", "page_number": 203, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE COLONY OF HONG KONG\n\n177\n\nIt ought always to be considerably lower than that, seeing the majority of our population consists of people in the prime of life, and we have hardly any of the deaths of the very old, and not so many of the deaths of children, which are the principal elements in the mortality at home. My belief, however, is that for young people coming out here, who will live regularly, and somewhat abstemiously rather than the contrary, the chances of their living out, and being uninjured by, the years of their sojourn, are quite as good as they would be in London.\n\nReturning from this digression on the health of the Colony, I may observe that before the end of 1843, I moved from the Morrison Hill to a house in D'Aguilar Street, that now forming the offices of Lapraik & Co. It was then a very different house from the present, and hardly half the size, but I had to pay $130 a month for it. Those were good days for parties who had houses to let. In the following year I moved to a house in Hollywood Road, which I had built, and which was subsequently for many years the Printing office of the London Missionary Society.\n\nFrom these two houses I used to walk to the Post Office which I have mentioned, when there was any arrival in the harbour by which I might expect letters. If there were any letters for me I got them; and then the postmaster would say, \"Here are letters also for so and so, and so and so, and so and so, in your neighbourhood. Please oblige me by taking them with you, and sending your coolie on with them.\" We used to get our home-letters then from Bombay by fast sailing clippers.\n\nIt was an era when the \"Lady Mary Wood\" came in with the Mail on the 13th August, 1845. She was the first of the P. & O.'s Mail steamers, and her passengers had been, I think, 55 days on the way from London to Hong Kong. And now have we not the same noble Company's steamers coming in twice a month in much shorter time, and the French steamers, and those of the Pacific Mail Company? Above all, have we not the Electric Telegraph, flashing news almost instantaneously from this to home, from home to this, Ariel-like putting its girdle round the earth? Verily the difference is great between that time and this.\n\nIn the early days there was next to no police guardianship; and the consequences were frequent disorders on the streets during the day, and many burglaries on a great scale during the night.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206410, "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-1971", "page_number": 227, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n+ + +\n\n201\n\nSha Wan villages about also remembers them. When I asked these ladies whether the charcoal burners were village people or outsiders, their reply was typical, and to the effect 'they weren't from our villages and probably not from adjacent ones either, but we didn't go near them to ask.'\n\nI have seen the Lantau and Lamma pits only, all linked with charcoal burning by the local people. The kilns, or rather the pits that remain, vary in size. Most are circular and fairly small, about 7 to 8 feet in diameter and a few feet deep at the present time. One of the Lamma pits, near Mau Tat, styled as ‘a big kiln' by the old village person mentioned above, is larger, being 15 feet across. Its earth walls are smooth and impregnated with tell-tale carbon. All these pits are cut into low banks or into the ground.\n\nPerhaps the last kilns to be operated in the Hong Kong area are some near the Shek O Road. According to Hok Tsui and Lan Nai Wan villagers living nearby, these were opened and operated by the Japanese during the war-time occupation of the Colony between 1941-45. They recall passing them and seeing them in operation when on their way to market in Shau Kei Wan, though giving them a wide berth for fear of trouble. Shau Kei Wan people say that the kilns were used to provide fuel for the electric plant at North Point, to which the charcoal was transported on little wooden trucks hauled by local men and women workers engaged by the Japanese.\n\nThese pits differ from the others in that they are domed, being cut into a high bank. They are apparently very similar, though newer, to those north of the Kowloon hills described over twenty years ago by G. A. C. Herklots in The Hong Kong Countryside (Hong Kong, S.C.M.P. Ltd. 1947). His description is worth quoting in full, though he was not clear whether or not the pits were used for charcoal burning and he had not sought to ask in the villages of the area.\n\n\"There are some curious dome-shaped holes by the path, one is actually immediately under the path. They are roughly six feet high in the centre and nine feet across. The sides are vertical, the roof domed and the floor space circular. The holes are holes in the ground and their roofs are level with the surface of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206411, "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-1971", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "202\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nground; they are not apparently built-up structures. Two possess shafts connecting the holes with the upper air and each has an entrance through which a man could crawl. Perhaps they are ancient charcoal ovens or equally ancient coral-lime kilns; but if so why so high up on the mountain side? If charcoal ovens they must be very old for it is many years since there was enough wood on this hillside to provide wood for kilns. In other parts of the Colony, similar holes have been found; there was one in a bank near Tai Tam reservoir and another was found when Aberdeen reservoir was constructed.'\n\nThe last reference is interesting. Only recently I was given several notebooks belonging to the late Walter Schofield (1888-1968), formerly of the Hong Kong Civil Service and a gifted amateur geologist and archaeologist. They contain the following reference to structures recorded at and near the Aberdeen reservoir in 1931:\n\n\"Aberdeen Reservoir, 14.3.31. Valley trending north from main valley, behind dam lies a flat open area with old paddy terrace walls. At north end of first patch of cultivation from mouth of valley is an oval structure of pounded earth, or chunam, mixed with small stones, 6' from E to W and 8' from N to S. Walls 3\" thick and variable. No sign of roof or window. Floor uneven, of rough earth and stones. Two feet below it is a built-up field, triangular, each side about 8 yds long.\n\nIn main valley east of the dam, close to point where upper valley branches off, and on a southern slope, is a fairly well-preserved hut with part of the dome remaining. It is circular about 8' in diameter, and of chunam. It is on a steep slope, 15' above bottom of valley, where there are at present no signs of cultivation. On its inner side is a narrow square chimney-like groove in the wall, vertical, and with a stone wedged in the bottom almost like a grate front. The outer wall is broken by a gap not over one foot wide.\n\nA third hut of similar type, preserving part of the dome, was seen in valley below Aberdeen New Road, north of the reservoir headquarters. This hut faces west and is on the eastern side of stream 8' or 10' above it. It was not closely examined.\"\n\nThese structures, particularly the second, seem to me very likely to have been charcoal kilns. These apart, there are two pits", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206595, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "TRADITIONAL CHINESE REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE\n\n137\n\nworld, yet by entering the backdoor of his shop, never leaving this world, he can work and provide for the needs of his family.\n\nSouth: In South China, the topography and climate of the land varies considerably from the Northern plains. The Chinese had to learn to adapt their architectural plans to different conditions. Certain groups of Chinese eventually devised new ways of expressing their character in their building in order to separate their communities from other groups.\n\nThe former home of Mao Tse-tung11 in the province of Hunan is representative of many peasant houses in the South. It is a typical three-sided courtyard house (Fig.✯✯) with a U-shaped plan. In this case, the main door faces north and hence must be a more auspicious local orientation. There is evidence from a drawing that the house is nestled into the embrace of a sloping hill which, according to feng shui, is the ideal site and provides strength and protection for the home. The front door leads into a living room with an ancestral shrine, off which are the kitchens and bedrooms. Since Mao's house has become a national tourist attraction, a new addition has been added for the caretaker and slight renovations have been made. The left wing of the original house has bedrooms and a library now. The kitchen and animal sheds, which were originally in the left wing, have been moved to a new shelter farther to the left. The new addition runs parallel to the left wing and forms a new and totally enclosed courtyard. There is also to be found in the region a variation of the U-shaped plan which is L-shaped. Both types of houses are usually constructed of earth walls with thatched roofs—shelter provided by the material at hand.\n\nThis house in Kiangsu province✯ is actually one room which has been partitioned. One enters heading north. It is an elaboration of a square plan also found in Kiangsu province.12 The living area is an all-purpose room and kitchen. At the far side, there is perhaps a screen which provides privacy for the bedroom. Within the bedroom, there are two k'angs: the whole family sleeps in this one part of the room. The owner of the house has built an addition in the form of a cobbler shop, placing it only a few paces from his front door. This poor craftsman's dwelling contains the basic needs for the family's well-being. No doubt there are fields or rice paddies around the house, though not necessarily those of the resident, as this region of China is under intensive cultivation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206596, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "138\n\nLINDA F. SULLIVAN\n\nAnother house in Kiangsu13 is almost a square and is of unusual appearance, perhaps because of its shape and especially the height of its southern wall. Unlike the last house which is built of earth walls and has a thatched roof, this house is made of brick. With the added strength of brick walls, the outer appearance becomes very much like a fortress. As one approaches, there is a shadow wall outside the main door which faces south. The southern end of the house is a very high wall which rises above the other walls of the house and shields the courtyard from the extremely hot and intense rays of the summer sun. After passing through the front door one enters the small courtyard which leads to a living space with two kitchens on either side which could be shared by two families. The two kitchens might also indicate that several generations live in the one house, in which case each generation would eat at different times and prepare their own food. The bedrooms are also located on either side of the living room. At the far side of the living room there is a small door which leads to the backyard where there is a vegetable garden. From a photograph, the house is nestled in the arms of a small hill, adding strength and fortune to the family.\n\nThe Ku family house in Shanghai14 is a free-standing three-sided courtyard house. The main part of the house has five bays. From the courtyard one enters a hall which combines as the living room and ancestral hall. On both sides of the hall there are clusters of three bedrooms which are entered through intermediary rooms. Perhaps these rooms are private spaces for each family or generation of a family to eat or gather for talk. From these private rooms one has access to the kitchens. The house is made of wood and is reinforced by bamboo poles. The main hall is high with an added upturned ridge at the apex of the roof. It appears that the kitchens also have this same type of roof while the corner buildings have a very plain and simple roof. The outer appearance is very light and simple and is a common sight in the southeastern parts of Kiangsu.\n\nMoving south from Kiangsu to Chekiang one leaves the Yangtze valley of waterways and rice paddies and goes into the mountainous, rugged land of the Chekiang mountains. Here the amount of arable land is scarce, and thus when the Chinese peasant builds his home he wants to use as little space as possible. Despite this constraint, there remains a strong desire to maintain a degree of privacy and to bring the world of nature within the walls of his home.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206597, "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": 145, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "TRADITIONAL CHINESE REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE\n\n139\n\nIn Chekiang there is a peasant home of recent date which has a courtyard leading up to the entrance.15 A visitor, however, must make a few turns before coming opposite the front door. The animal pens, built onto part of the house front, also add a measure of privacy to the living areas. There is another small courtyard which extends into the living quarters. This open area has two inside doors from which one can either go into a living room with a kitchen, or into the bedroom. The outside walls are windowless and have been constructed of pounded or rammed earth. The roof is thatched with bamboo rafters which are supported by timber posts.\n\nAnother house in Chekiang province near the city of Hangchow is more complex, yet extremely compact. The entrance is through a small passageway on one side of which is a garden and on the other a terrace. In the living area, there is a small courtyard. The open space is surrounded on three sides by a low (3') wall which has a wide counter surface which can be used as a work space. Half of the house is two storeys while the rest is only one storey. Upstairs there are high windows on the north side of the house which permit good ventilation. In a space less than five square meters, there are four bedrooms. This family realizes the need to economize their living space in order to maximize the size of their fields and gardens.\n\nThese houses in Chekiang illustrate that although in a tightly compact situation, the Chinese try to have as much privacy and open space as is possible within their homes. They carefully avoid using any more of the scarce arable lands than is absolutely necessary.\n\nFrom the mountainous regions of Chekiang province one travels southward into the provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung and finds the homes of a particular group of people, the Hakka, besides those of other dialect groups. According to the chroniclers, the Hakka or \"guest people\" lived on the Central Plain in modern Honan and Shantung provinces during the Ch'in dynasty (221-206 B.C.) and the period of the Three Kingdoms (220-265 A.D.). During the Tartar invasions of the fourth and ninth centuries, they migrated South to escape alien oppression. During the successive mass migrations of the Chinese people, the Hakka sought refuge in the mountains of South China. The Hakka people are farmers who have been forced to struggle for subsistence on the poor soil of the highlands.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206622, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "164\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nMeanwhile work had been going on under the Geological Survey of China in Kwangsi, where the Tertiary and Recent deposits were examined, and the earth in the caves, known to yield ‘dragon bones’ in considerable quantities, was searched, with the result that a flaked-tool culture related to the late Hoabinhian culture (Mesolithic) of Tongking was found. It is unrelated to the cultures of the coast. These, however, seem to extend as far north as the neighbourhood of Nanking, for stone artifacts and pottery with geometric decoration have been found near there and around Hangchow, lying on the surface of the earth. No details of these discoveries are yet published. The same is true of investigations carried out round Foochow, where a culture similar to that of Hong Kong is said to have been discovered.\n\nAfter the Oslo congress of prehistorians in 1936, at which Father Finn was present just before his death, Dr. J.G. Andersson went to China, and turned his attention to the problems of South China’s archaeology. In Hong Kong, after visiting several sites, he suggested a trial excavation of a site at Shek Pek on the island of Lant’au, which I had discovered. We accordingly collaborated in this task for some days; after he left I did further excavation there. At this site, for the first time, were found undisturbed burials. Dr. Andersson next visited Foochow, and later went to Szechwan, where he discovered a number of Neolithic sites. After the Japanese began the war he returned to the coast by Canton, and later worked in the islands along the north Tongking coast at the invitation of the École Française of Hanoi, where a number of sites were discovered; some were excavated by Mlle. Colani of that institution.\n\nMeanwhile a Chinese scholar of the National Research Institute had pursued researches at Wup’ing, West Fukien, where he found cultures akin to the earlier Hong Kong cultures and to those of Swabue. He communicated his results to the third Prehistorians’ Congress at Singapore* and in his address he showed that objects belonging to this group of cultures are to be found in several sites in Fukien and Chekiang provinces, but that all finds made so far are surface finds only.\n\nThese investigations, partial and local as they are, have yielded very interesting (and in some respects sensational) results. First,\n\n* These proceedings were published by the Government Printing House, Singapore, 1940.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206634, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "176\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\ncyclical characters of the year.\" Hodous appears either to be confusing T'ai Sui and Kou Mang, or to be giving T'ai Sui yet another alias.\n\nIn T'aip'ing in Malaya two images of mud bulls are to be seen standing on a pile of paper hell money on the altar beside T'ai Sui. The reason for their inclusion on the altar was not known by the temple keeper nor by the devotees who said that they had always been in that position as far back as anyone could recall. (See Plate 15).\n\nThe Rev. Wm Milne4 in Ningpo in the mid 1840s noted \"the festival of the Beating in of Spring\" when on the first day of spring the Chief Magistrate of the city beat the \"god of spring\", a multi-coloured paper ox, which was then torn to pieces by the crowd, for luck. Milne claimed to have seen this same ceremony elsewhere in Central China, and said that in some districts the bull is made of mud. “The colouring varies as laid down in the Peking annual book of ceremonies. The variations in colours such as red horns, black tail and feet, white body, blue head and neck are regarded as prognosticating the portents of the coming year. The amount of black signifies sickness, blue winds, white rain and floods, red fire and yellow the fruits of the earth. There are also a number of smaller mud oxen mainly sold for household good fortune.”\n\nThe Rev. Milne also reported that “the \"god of spring\" was seen in the shape of a youthful human image, the son of an early Emperor. He too is attired in a fashion prophetic of the fortune of the coming year: bareheaded predicted cold weather, and white robe augurs a dry year etc.\" This youthful image is almost certainly T'ai Sui. In all temples where he was observed in the \"scroll or bell-holding\" two-armed version, his image was seen very frequently to be balanced on wads, sometimes very high wads, of hell money. This is the paper money purchased from temple keepers to be burnt by devotees for the use of deceased members of the family in the Underworld. This custom is usually only to be seen in temples under wealth gods, but in the case of T'ai Sui, the wads are offerings to T'ai Sui for protection and not for transmission by burning to deceased relatives. Shyrock in his Temples of Anking says hell money is burnt for use by ancestors and is never presented to Gods. It would appear to be otherwise in Central and South China.\n\n4 Milne, W. C., Life in China (London, Routledge, 1857).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206641, "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": 189, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n183\n\n(E), Pei Chi Sheng Ti (1), the Pen Ming Hsing Chün ($*£*) who is the local earth god, and the provincial city god. All five are connected with the fate of mankind.\n\nIn a Ch'ao Chow temple in Johore Bahru, Tai Sui a youth with a scroll (***) is on the altar of Hung Chün Lao Tsu (#$ *). (Plate 20)\n\nFather Doré says that in one temple outside the South Gate of Jukao, in the Yangtze Valley, Yin Ch'iao (F) is to be seen on the right as you face him, with Marshal Ma () on the left. Both have six arms, stand on clouds, and hold swords, amulets, gourds, bells and banners in their hands. Ma has three eyes and wears a hat, whilst Yin is bare from the waist upward and has his hair in a large upswept tuft on the top of his head. Yin is worshipped here as a member of the Ministry of Thunder.\n\nOther interesting sightings.\n\nIn Lavender Street in Singapore a Cantonese temple has sixty-two T'ai Sui images. About half the images hold scrolls and are, according to the temple keeper, the administrators of the fortune; whereas the others with silken slippers, fans, bells, etc. are those who actually provide the fortune.\n\nOne image of a young man, standing with one slipper on and one bare foot, is to be seen in Bukit Purmei temple in Singapore. He is prayed to for rain, and for good crops. (Plate 21)*\n\nCarver's drawings of Yin Ch'iao\n\nA Fukienese god carver prepared, on request, drawings of many deities. From memory he drew:\n\na. An image of T'ai Sui, seated, robed like a monk, wearing sandals, a band around his hair, and holding an open scroll with Tang Nien T'ai Sui (****).\n\nb. Yin Ch'iao's father, seated astride a large, long-beaked bird, holding a fly whisk in his right hand and a seal in his left hand. He is bearded, with a Taoist top knot and crown. His robes are covered in the Yin and Yang circle pattern.\n\nc. Yin Hung(); a standing young man with a spear in his left hand, and a mirror raised in his right, which is flashing beams towards his enemies.\n\n* Plates 22-24 also relate to representations of T'ai Sui.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206730, "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-1973", "page_number": 7, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "1\n\n# PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1972\n\nI am very pleased to report to you this evening on the activities of this thirteenth year of the resuscitated Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. It is a year that has seen an increase in membership, in activities, and in sale of our publications.\n\nThe timing of this Annual General Meeting is most auspicious, for as many of you probably know, this month the parent Society in Britain is celebrating its 150th anniversary. The Royal Asiatic Society, it might be recalled, was designed partly to bring together in London members of learned societies in the East, which had been formed for study of its various cultures. We, as one of these societies, and indeed directly affiliated to it, enjoy the privileges of using the very rich library facilities of the Royal Asiatic Society when we are in London.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society was founded in March 1823, and it was not long afterwards that our original Hong Kong Branch was also founded. This was in 1847, and meetings were held in a room of the old Supreme Court building where the library was also housed. Unfortunately however, we were not to share the parent Society's long unbroken history. With the departure in 1859 of Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hong Kong, and the death in that year of the Society's secretary, the organizing body collapsed. Despite the efforts of all those of the time, who recognised the important contributions the Society was making to the cultural life of the Colony, it failed to revive.\n\nIn 1959, a hundred years later however, a group of people who had become concerned about the dearth of cultural activities in Hong Kong at that time, decided that they would try to improve the situation and bring the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society back into life. They were fortunate in having the enthusiasm and support of scholars working in the Colony, and other members of the community who desired to promote both interest in, and research into, the culture and environment of Hong Kong, China, and their near neighbours. This enthusiasm, I am pleased to say, has continued. Many scholars: historians, anthropologists, and other students of society and culture; and natural scientists, have presented some of their original research materials to the Society in talks, symposia, papers and journal articles,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206803, "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-1973", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "74\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nThe Ch'aochow Puppets in Hong Kong\n\nBeing interested in all forms of puppet-theatre, I had heard of the existence of horizontally-moved Ch'aochow stick-puppets in Hong Kong, but it took a long time to have the opportunity to actually see them performed. In the spring of 1973, the leader of the Cantonese rod-puppet troupe, Mak Shiu-tongA, invited me to watch a show near his home, at Block 9 of the Tsz Wan Shan Resettlement Estate. The Ch'aochow people of the estate celebrated the birthday of their patron saint Po-yeh-tan1 on the 27th, 28th and 29th day of the first month.* On a limited rectangular area of about 1,500 square feet there was a bamboo-shed on stilts serving as a puppet-theatre on one end (Plate I), another serving as a make-shift temple opposite to it (Plate II), with an altar on one side and an enormous paper dragon-robe on the other (Plate III).\n\nThe robe complete with boots, belt and lots of neatly folded paper money was to be burned at the end of the celebration, in order to bestow insignia of rank upon the saint in acknowledgement of his merits. The decoration of the robe varies according to the saint to whom it is dedicated. But it is noteworthy that besides the elaborate dragon in relief, pairs of phoenixes and young hornless dragons and the Eight Immortals, three pavilions with eight paper-figures are added. These figures strongly resemble the puppets which I saw later and their heads are also made of plaster. In Ch'aochow the tradition of puppetry and ceremonial figures are very closely related.\n\nThe stilts of the stage were four feet high, with a floor area of 10' x 10' (Plate I), where on the same level the musicians and the puppeteers sit and on which the puppets move (Plate IV). The puppet-stage was very small, with four chairs and a table, all with embroidered covers. The stage is created by five flaps of richly embroidered curtains called chu lien4; the middle one being short to enable the back-stage musicians to follow the performance closely. The two long side-flaps cover a puppeteer each. The decoration of the curtains complement each other to form a cosmical unity: the square middle part shows the lion with four peonies for each direction, representing the earth, the Yin. The Yang is expressed in the dragon design of the other four flaps.\n\nBehind the stage stands a small chest with three drawers—one for puppet-heads, one for headgear and one for arms or pennants\n\n* Lunar calendar.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206848, "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-1973", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 119\n\ncrow their feathers all fell down on the earth. Nine suns were shot down, but one was too far away to be reached, and that is the sun that still remains to this day. Ngai was very afraid of dying, and he went to a fairy called Sai Wong Mo (1) who gave him some medicine for long life. Sheung Ngoh stole it, and took it in secret. She became lighter and lighter and eventually floated up to the moon where she became a toad. She had a palace to live in which was called the Shim Kung. Another story tells of a Kwai tree growing in the moon, 5,000 Chinese feet tall. A man called Ng Kong (吳剛), who had been sent to the moon as a punishment by the gods for having committed something wrong when learning to become an immortal, was always chopping it with a large chopper. He never managed to cut it down, because as soon as a cut was made in the trunk, it instantly grew together again. Thus the saying \"Shim Kung Chit Kwai\" which applied to those who passed the highest government examinations, gradually came into use since the T'ong (唐) dynasty, A.D. 618. There were many Kwai trees on the hillsides of Kwai Kok Shaan, either planted by Tang Foo or someone later, and the teachers are supposed to have sent their pupils out from the school to pluck the sprigs of flowers with the idea of encouraging them to further effort.\n\nAnother name for the hill is Ngo T'aam Shaan (鵝潭山), turtle pool hill. There is a pool still to be found on the hillside, which, according to one story, used to have turtles living in it. Another story says that it had a rock looking like the head of a large turtle. In olden times all the successful candidates who had passed the government examination, Tsun Sz (進士) went up to the emperor's palace to sit for a further examination named Tin Shi (殿試). Those who passed had their names put in order of merit on a list written on gold paper, and at a ceremony known as Ch'uen Lo (傳臚) the names were read out. The two candidates at the top of the list were led up the steps of the palace by the master of ceremonies, who then presented the first candidate, called the Chong Yuen (狀元) with the list. At the top of the stairs was a turtle carved in stone, and finally the Chong Yuen was caused to stand with his foot on its head. Thus he was known as \"Tuk chim ngo t'au\" (獨占鰲頭). The scholars at Kwai Kok Shaan when wandering on the hillsides would amuse themselves by standing on the turtle-head rock and shouting “I am the only man to put his foot on the head of the turtle!\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206881, "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-1973", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "152\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe making of verses was a gentlemanly pursuit in early Victorian days, encouraged of course by the system of classical education which emphasised translation from Latin and Greek and hence a detailed knowledge of the rules—or mechanics—of prosody. Mercer received such a traditional education: he was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he took a B.A. degree, and for a time was at the Inner Temple, though he did not take the Bar examination. When he came to Hong Kong as his uncle's private secretary, he sought solace from the chores of day-to-day colonial administration in his poetic exercises and the result was Under the Peak.\n\nThere are five poems in this book—‘a string of sonnets’—which refer specifically to Hong Kong. They are, respectively: The Peak; The Bay; The Triads' Cave; The Water Fall; The Temple on Taplichow; The Pic Nic Cottage at Heong-Kong; and The Chinaman's Grave on the Lonely Hill Side. According to Mercer's note on the poem, The Triads' Cave, ‘a cavern romantically situated, has now disappeared before the utilitarian demand for granite. It was long the chosen resort of the members of the infamous San hop hwai, or Triad Society', where:\n\nThe robber horde oath-bound to mutual aid\n\nWould plan foul murder and unpitying raid\n\nO'er midnight counsel in their secret den?\n\nThe gem among these sonnets is without doubt The Chinaman's Grave, and should be given in extenso:\n\nOh Chow, or Wong! or by whatever name\n\nMen call'd thee, or the Gods may call thee now,\n\nWhy so extravagantly vast thy claim\n\nTo mortuary earth upon the brow\n\nOf yon fair hill? If all men spread as thou\n\nNo room for things created would be found\n\nThroughout the Seric land, but all the ground\n\nWould teem with graves, and well might it be said\n\nThat living ones were push'd from off their stools\n\nBy men all useless, now that they are dead\n\nAnd vanish'd. Did Confucius leave no rules\n\nTo bind a soul's ambition by the tomb?\n\nThen let survivors show themselves no fools,\n\nBut dig thy bones up to make elbow-room", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206893, "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-1973", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "164\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ntraditional Buddhist scenes. Wat Suwannaram on Klong Bangkok Noi is one of the best known temples for murals. The building was constructed in the reign of Rama I and its paintings, dating from the time of Rama III, were executed by two artists, Luang Vichit Chetsada and Kru Khonpae, whose names have, unusually, come down to us. The wall inside the entrance illustrates the conquest of the Buddha over the spirit of evil, Mara, and the wall behind the altar shows the Buddha descending to the earth, the Traibhumi. At the upper levels on the long side walls are rows of orahan or followers of the Buddha, and between the windows the jataka tales, the stories of the last ten incarnations of the Buddha-to-be, are represented, the whole of the left-hand wall being given over to the very last jataka, the Vessuntarajataka, or renunciation. The paintings are remarkable for their delicacy and charm.\n\nSome more examples of traditional Siamese painting were to be seen in the collection in Krisnavara House, the home of the epigraphist and art historian Alexander B. Griswold, which was opened specially for the tour. Mr. Griswold's collection of rare Sukhothai porcelains and ancient stuccos and bronzes was much appreciated.\n\nThe Siam Society, a learned body established in 1904, has a traditional northern house, the Kamthieng museum, re-erected in one corner of its fine grounds. The Society was the setting for an introduction to traditional Siamese folk opera, likay. Especially for the tour, the Hom Huan troupe of actors performed with verve the story of Chantakorop. The prince of this name falls in love with a fickle girl Mora who has come from a magic casket and who agrees to be his wife, but she is then attracted by a bandit leader and enables him to kill Chantakorop. The prince is taken up to heaven by the god Indra, the bandit leader runs away from his new wife who is alone and hungry in the jungle. Indra, disguised as a bird, offers her food on condition she marries the bird. She agrees and is transformed into a gibbon as a reward for her fickleness.\n\nLikay is an old theatrical form, possibly of southern or Malay origin, but having by syncretism absorbed most other Thai theatrical forms including the masked dance khon. Once extremely popular, it is now dying out in the capital. It is rumbustious and bawdy, and incorporates popular songs, traditional dance and improvised dialogue. The costumes are gay, extravagant and imaginative. The small orchestra of six performed on traditional instruments.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206960, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "The Paper Chase\n\n25\n\nSo far, we have received transfers of records from 27 different government offices, the whole now occupying nearly 6,000 feet of shelving. We have therefore passed the storage capacity of our present premises and have had to resort to additional temporary accommodation on the old naval dockyard site.\n\nWhen I came to Hong Kong I was told that practically all of the government's pre-war records had perished during the Japanese occupation. It is true that pitifully little remains of the very large accumulations which must have been in government offices in 1941, and what records did survive, with a few notable exceptions, tend to be fragmentary and unrelated to one another in time or content.\n\nNevertheless the dearth is not as great as is sometimes supposed. The Rating and Valuation Department's Rates Collection Book series, which we now hold, is practically complete from 1858 to 1952, and several large and exceedingly valuable series of 19th and pre-war 20th century Land Office records have been transferred to us from the Registrar-General's Department. These include series of correspondence files dating from 1866 to 1940, Crown and Village Rent Rolls from 1843 to 1958 and 1856 to 1960 respectively and some 90-100,000 Surrendered Title Deeds, many of which date from the middle of the 19th century, and possibly earlier.\n\nOther pre-war records have reached us from the Prisons Department, Audit, the Supreme Court, the Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers), and the Official Receiver's Office and they are still coming. Only a few days ago some twelve volumes of Judicial Department correspondence dating from 1844 to 1903 were unearthed from a great pile of lumber and rubbish in a government record store and as my staff are still quarrying in it I have no doubt that more of them will come to light.\n\nThere is no knowing what treasures may lie in the many dungeons of government's archival limbo. Some of them are so cluttered as to be virtually inaccessible, except by emptying them, and it will be years before we have prospected them all—that is, if we succeed in finding them all. Twelve years ago a very large crate of mid-19th century records was discovered quite by accident in the roof of the Supreme Court.\n\nThe loss of Hong Kong's pre-war records is regrettable but the situation is not entirely irretrievable. As many of you know, a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206995, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "60\n\nCAROLE MORGAN\n\nOther ceremonies involving dogs are mentioned in the Chou Li, the Chou Book of Rites (a utopian picture of Chou society compiled from late Chou, Chin and Han sources in the 1st Century B.C.). In the nu (（）) sacrifice to drive away pestilence, a dog was dismembered and his remains buried in front of the main gates of the capital.10\n\nThe ba (*) sacrifice to ward off evil required the participation of the Emperor himself. Riding in a jade chariot it was his duty to crush a dog under the wheels of his carriage. An analysis of the character ba clearly shows what took place in the ceremony. The term ba is written with the radical for cart and a phonetic element (（）) which originally meant an animal whose legs had been bound. It was the duty of a specially appointed official to supply a dog of one colour and without blemishes for the sacrifice.12\n\nAccording to one author, Schindler, the origin of using dogs as sacrificial animals dates back to a primitive cult in honour of a dog-shaped god of vegetation whose worship later became amalgamated with that of Shang Ti, god of agricultural production and reigning deity of the Shang pantheon.13 The fact that alone among domestic animals dogs and horses were buried (dogs being wrapped in reed mats and horses in sheets) gives some support to this theory.14\n\nIn Chou times, horses too were used as sacrificial victims. In the ma (（）) ceremony horses were used as chthonic sacrifices to the Earth Goddess;15 and Ssu Ma Ch'ien tells us that Duke Hsiang of Ch'in (776-766 B.C.) sacrificed a red colt to the White Emperor of the West.16 In such cases the horse to be sacrificed was first shot with an arrow and then buried.17\n\nBut as horses became more valuable the practice of using them as sacrificial victims gradually died out. By 103 B.C. Ssu-Ma Ch'ien informs us all live horses had been replaced by wooden statuettes except in cases such as the chiao (*) sacrifice, celebrated by the Emperor himself, during which he informed his ancestors that he was about to undertake a punitive expedition.18\n\nHorses, however, were not only used as sacrificial animals, they were also entitled to a cult of their own.\n\nAccording to the Chou Li it was the duty of an official, the Hsiao Jen, to sacrifice in Spring to the ma tsu (（马祖）), the ancestors of horses. It was the duty of the same official to honour the \"tamer", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206996, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "DOGS AND HORSES IN ANCIENT CHINA \n\n61 \n\nof horses\" in Summer, sacrifice to the ma she (1) or earth god of horses in Autumn and the ma bu (✈) in Winter.19 (According to K'ang Ch'eng, a commentator of the Chou Li, the ma she was a spirit who sat in judgement on horses.) \n\nThe Chou Li also tells us that other officials were entrusted with the care of horses. It was, for instance, the duty of the mu shih (**) or Herdsman to supervise the imperial horse pastures and see to it that they were annually improved by burning off the top grass.20 The Herdsman was also required to perform a curious task which consisted of clamping bamboo pins on the ears of any restless two-year-old fillies, a treatment guaranteed to soothe the most restive animal.21 \n\nTo treat sick horses there was not only a veterinarian but also a horse sorcerer or wu ma (4) to assist him. It was the sorcerer's task to diagnose a sick animal's ailment by studying its gait, after which the veterinarian bathed the horse in a herbal decoction (which may have had mildly analgesic properties) before undertaking any other course of treatment.22 The sorcerer also had to be conversant with the sick horse's pedigree in order to sacrifice to its ancestors. If, despite these ministrations, the animal died, one of the two merchants attached to the sorcerer's office had to sell the carcass and return the money to the officer in charge of the corral.23 \n\nThat horses were used both as sacrificial victims and as cult objects may be due to the fact that traces of two completely different cultures survived into Chou times. According to Schindler horses were used as chthonic sacrifices because the Earth Goddess had originally been horse-shaped.24 The author bases his argument on a passage from the I Ching (Hexagram 1 and 2) which states that \"Earth is a mare.\" (This passage may have been responsible for a taboo, current in Han times, against riding mares.25) But in the Shuo Gua section of the I Ching we find a statement to the effect that \"Heaven is a horse and Earth is an ox.\" Obviously this is a relic from a different culture which identified horses with the virile qualities of heaven,26 \n\nDogs and Horses as Sources of Food \n\nIn ancient China it was customary to use as sacrificial victims only animals whose flesh was habitually eaten. Thus, the custom of eating both dogs and horses goes back to very ancient times.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207002, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "DOGS AND HORSES IN ANCIENT CHINA\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n67\n\nPrimary Sources\n\nChou Li, Ssu-pu Ts'ung K'an, ts'e 9-14, Commercial Press, Shanghai, 1920-1922.\n\nMu Tien Tzu Chuan, Ssu-pu pei-yao, ts'e 1129, Chung-hua shu-chu, Shanghai, 1927-1935.\n\nSsu Ma Ch'ien, Shi Chi; Er. Shih-Ssu pen, Wu Chou Tung, Wen Shu Chu, Shanghai, 1903.\n\nSecondary Sources\n\nANDERSSON, J. G. Children of the Yellow Earth, Kegan Paul, London 1934.\n\nBIOT, Edouard Le Tcheou Li, Wen Tien Ko, Peking 1929, (reprinted 1939).\n\nBURKHARDT, V. R. Chinese Creeds and Customs, South China Morning Post press, Hong Kong 1955 and 1958.\n\nCHANG Kwang-chih The Archeology of Ancient China, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1963.\n\nCHAVANNES, Edouard Les Memoires Historiques de Se Ma Ts'ien, Brill, Leiden (reprinted 1939).\n\nCHENG Te-K'un Archeology in China, Vols. I, II, III, Heffer, Cambridge 1960.\n\nCOUVREUR, S. Le Li Ki, Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, Ho Kien Fu 1913.\n\nCREEL, Herrlee G. Studies in Early Chinese History, Kegan Paul, London 1938.\n\nDUBS, Homer The History of the Former Han by Pan Ku, Waverly Press, Baltimore 1955.\n\nERKES, Eduard (1) \"Der Hund im Alten China\" in T'oung Pao, Vol. 37 (1944) 186-225.\n\n(2) \"Das Pferd im Alten China\" in T'oung Pao, Vol. 36 (1940-42) 27-36.\n\nKARLGREN Grammata Serica, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Bulletin No. 12, Stockholm, 1940.\n\nLAUFER, Berthold Chinese Pottery of the Han Dynasty, Brill, Leiden 1909.\n\nSCHAFER, Edward The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963.\n\nSCHINDLER, Bruno (1) \"The Development of the Chinese Conception of Supreme Being\" in Hirth Anniversary Vol., 298-366.\n\n(2) \"On Travel, Wayside and Wind Offerings\" in Asia Major, Vol. 45 (1924) 624-656.\n\nYETTS, Perceval \"The Horse; A factor in Early Chinese History\" in Eurasia Septentrionalis Antique, Vol. 9 (1934) 231-235.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207078, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "HONG KONG PLACE NAMES\n\nO.S. S.S. Meaning or Remarks\n\n143 15 kau 九 gao4 Occurs very often in place-names when the meaning cannot be 'nine', and even where (e.g. 'Kowloon') there is a legend to explain the use of 'nine', other circumstances lead us to suspect aetiological myth.\n\n16 kei 基 ghey The Man147 glossary gives this word as meaning in the language of the southern tribes, 'behind, lesser, second'; which fits the context wherever it occurs in local place-names.\n\n17 kei-wai 基圍 gheywray A bund between paddy fields. An earth dyke.\n\n18 kek 塈 kreak A large earth dyke used to reclaim salt-marsh from the sea.\n\n19 keng 逕 geang Ruins, especially the foundation left after a building has been removed. (The word seems to have originated in Hakka137 pronounced khak—and to have been adopted by local Punti160 speakers). See (3).\n\n 逕座 geang 烴 A pass with a path over it; also the path leading to the pass. See au (2).\n\nOn maps often found mis-spelt kang (which is the Namtau156 dialect pronunciation). The book pronunciation geng is...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207138, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 209, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n203\n\nAt this time the population of Ha Wan was 4861 (G.N. 21 of the Government gazette for 5th March 1859).\n\nObservation Point must be the Observation Place shown on the Map accompanying Mr. Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong, published by the Colonial Office in 1882. The map shows Ha Wan as District No. 6 and Wanchai as District No. 7. This indicates that Wanchai was taken from it at some date between 1857 and 1882. Observation Place is shown at p. 46 of the Index to the Streets, House Nos., and Lots in the Colony of Hong Kong, 1903, and may be identified with the lower end of the present Tin Lok Lane, near its junction with Hennessy Road, then seashore.\n\nWanchai was one of the first districts to be developed after the British Occupation of the Island in 1841. The Reverend Carl T. Smith has kindly provided an account of this development, based on his original researches into Hong Kong records. This is attached as a separate Note.\n\nThe Itinerary and Places of Interest\n\nThe party will follow a circuitous route among the back streets, steps and terraces of old Wanchai between Monmouth Path in the west and Stone Nullah Lane on the east.\n\nAmong the places of interest to be visited are several Chinese temples and shrines as follows:\n\n1) The Pak Kung Shrine at the side of No. 7, Star Street. This was established before the War, probably upwards of 70 years ago. The shrine is a To Tei Miu (±普普) or altar to the earth god. The main festival of the year falls on the 2nd day of the second lunar month when the management committee of local residents organises a religious and social celebration.\n\n2) Hung Shing Temple, Queen's Road East. This temple is one of the oldest of the area and may even have existed as a shrine before the British Occupation of the Island. According to Carl Smith there was a small settlement nearby which may have provided the body of regular worshippers, along with visiting boat people.\n\nThe present structure dates from Hsien Feng 10th year (1860-61), repaired in T’ung Chih 6th year (1867-68) when the persons responsible are listed as 'the whole body of devout Hong Kong believers'. These dates point to an earlier origin, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207203, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 274, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "Plate 5.\n\nA Singapore carving of Lu Tung-pin the physician (呂洞賓).\n\nPlate 7.\n\nTaiwanese mud god showing its stuffing of rice husks.\n\nPlate 6. Teochew carving of Kan Tien Ta Ti (乾天大帝) centre: with an Earth God (二土地) on each side. (The right hand one is a cheap and simple pottery image.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207258, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "18\n\nJOHN T. MYERS\n\nEspecially in Fukien, Taiwan, and the eastern extremity of Kwang-tung Province one finds an apparently long-standing tradition of Chinese spirit-mediumship. Among the Western language accounts of that phenomenon the most notable are Doolittle's2 description of its practice in Fukien Province during the waning years of the Ch'ing Dynasty; Elliott's3 discussion of such cults among the Chinese of Singapore; and recent monographs by Jordan and Ahern on mediums in rural sectors of contemporary Taiwan.\n\nWith the exception of an article by Potter on female mediums in a New Territories village, there is an absence of detailed systematic study of spirit-mediumship in the Hong Kong region; and, for that matter, in Kwangtung Province. The dearth of scholarly literature is complemented by an apparent lack of familiarity with mediumship among Hong Kong's Cantonese residents.\" In those few instances when one encounters a knowledgeable informant his knowledge is usually limited to the type of female mediums discussed by Potter. The female medium known in Cantonese as a man sing poHis ordinarily a middle-aged or elderly woman who at the request of clients will contact spirits of the deceased. The man sing po in the urban area invariably act on an individualistic basis and conduct seances in their own homes rather than at temples. This type of medium is seldom, if ever, the central focus of an organized cult.\n\nThe man sing po, however, is not the only type of medium operating in contemporary Hong Kong. A reasonably careful search of resettlement estates and other urban residential complexes having a significant Chiu-Chow, Hokkien, or Hoi-Luk-Fung9 population will reveal the existence of not a few temples which serve as the operational base for another type of medium, the kei tung *E*\n\nUnlike the man sing po the kei tung whom we have encountered in Hong Kong are males who do not hold commerce with the spirits of deceased mortals. Instead, the kei tung claims a special relationship with one or more traditional deities who on occasion utilize his bodily faculties to communicate with mortals. The urban kei tung is also more apt to limit his possession ceremonies to the \n\n*\n\nDespite the reference to non-Cantonese speech groups, romanization follows R. T. Cowles' Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese, 2nd edition, Hong Kong, 1949, this being the common tongue of Hong Kong. Arthur Wolf touches on the difficulties of transcription for Hokkien in the preface to his edited collection Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford 1974).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207264, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "24\n\nJOHN T. MYERS\n\nincantation around the cauldron. On they go for hours in darkness. The voices at times grow louder and the drum beat more vigorous. All at once the medium who has begun to sway his body from side to side as if to invite supernatural influences begins to be violently affected. He dances and leaps in the air, the beat of the drum becomes more rapid, and the voices of the men louder and shriller. The wildest confusion reigns. It seems as though some horrid scene from the infernal regions were being enacted on earth and the devils had been let loose for a time to carry on their orgies among men.\"14\n\nWe have quoted at length the 19th century description because it is our opinion even the most zealously anti-pagan observer may have a difficult time identifying it as essentially the same type of ritual enacted each evening at Tai Wong Ye Temple. Scheduled at 10 p.m. for the convenience of a working class population the ceremony incorporates little of the din and frenzy which characterized its Amoy counterpart.\n\nOn almost any given evening shortly before 10 o'clock petitioners begin arriving at the temple. The number commonly varies from 10 to 15, with a distinct majority being middle-aged and elderly women. After burning joss sticks and offering prayers to the deity, petitioners at the direction of various tan sang who tend the altar, inscribe their name, birthday, and the names of other family members on a red sheet of paper. This accomplished they gather around a red table in the middle of the shrine chamber. The atmosphere is casual as greetings and gossip are exchanged between them. On the red table is a can of red paint, a slender paint brush, a rubber stamp, a stack of yellow paper slips, a rather large compartmentalized box with various types of herbs, and a basin of foo shui or \"sacred water\" #k. Near the table is a red, throne-shaped chair.\n\nAt approximately 10 p.m. the medium enters the temple. After greeting those present he approaches the table and takes a sip of the sacred water. Continuing to stand before the table, he begins to move his head from side to side. He then starts pounding the table with his fists while emitting loud guttural grunts. After a few moments he adopts a stylized posture signifying to all present the identity of the possessing deity. The tan sang provide him with the throne-like chair and he sits to hear the petitions of worshippers. The possession is usually effected within two minutes of his sipping the sacred water.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207305, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "THE GREAT PLAGUE OF HONG KONG\n\n65\n\nconsiderable sum of money. However, compliance with this regulation was seldom observed. House to house visits continued to detect afflicted premises but this also proved difficult. Usually, bodies were thrown out at night by the other occupants of infected houses so as to avoid detection and the subsequent disinfection of the premises. In 1900, for example, 412 dead bodies were dumped in the harbour,\n\nWhen the disinfection of houses was undertaken it was the usual practice for the occupants to be issued with new clothes. Their own clothes, bedding, curtains and carpets were sent to a steam disinfecting station. The premises were then thoroughly cleaned by spraying the walls with a solution of perchloride of mercury; alternatively, rooms were fumigated with free chlorine obtained by the addition of diluted sulphuric acid to chlorinated lime. Finally, the floors and furniture were scrubbed with Jeyes fluid and the walls were lime-washed. During these operations the occupants were given temporary accommodation on Chinese marriage boats anchored off Stonecutters Island.\n\nOther measures taken included the burial of the dead in a plague cemetery at Kennedy Town and the regular disinfecting of all public latrines with chlorinated lime.\n\nIn Search of an Answer\n\nThe suddenness of the attack of plague in 1894 and its continued virulence for the next two decades must have caused great dismay among the community in general, particularly as it also seemed impossible for modern science to eradicate the basic cause of the disease.\n\nWhen Sir William Robinson reported to the Marquess of Ripon in 1894 on the course of events he wrote:\n\n\"It is, I think, very probable that the want of sufficient water and the filthy habits of life amongst the 210,000 Chinese who reside here have rendered Hong Kong liable to the invasion and development of the germ of the bubonic plague. Chinese are of the opinion that the plague emanates from the ground and is favoured by a long continuance of dry weather when the earth becomes porous and numerous fissures appear on the surface facilitating the escape of whatever causes the disease.\"*\n\n* Ibid, p. 5.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207334, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "94 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nemployment; but few stayed with the department. Most took to their gypsy life again, once they had accumulated a few dollars, and left for either Shanghai or Singapore, or simply went to earth in Tai Ping Shan or Wan Chai until disinterred by the police, always on the look out for European destitutes. \n\nThere were always some troops on garrison duty in the colony or manning the various fortifications designed to repel a seaborne invasion. The garrison normally was small and numbered usually less than 1,500 men. But numbers fluctuated markedly at times. In March 1860, for example, over 14,000 troops (10,000 British and 4,000 French) were being drilled in a vast tented camp on two square miles of the Kowloon peninsula, leased from the Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, and awaiting transportation to the theatre of operations in the north. A witness of these events wrote that 'the streets of Victoria were thronged by soldiers and sailors; commissaries and staff officers were to be seen everywhere; all as busy as mortals could be'.7 \n\nIt was a policy of the government and the military to keep troops if possible out of European Victoria—the central commercial district—and to confine their debaucheries to special areas of the colony. Thus five brothels were specially opened at Wan Chai in the 1850s when soldiers at that time were prohibited by their officers from entering the central districts of the city. For soldiers on outpost duties access to Victoria was difficult in any case: \n\nGarrison life at these outposts is usually melancholy; society is impossible, as the fortifications are eight miles by water from the city, and communication over the mountains is arduous. It is not a question of which is the better of the two, but which the worse, to be of the British Garrison Artillery or the Chinese Lighthouse Service.& \n\nThere were usually more sailors than soldiers ashore in Hong Kong, or afloat in the harbour, at certain times of the year. During the three winter months, the British China squadron was stationed in Hong Kong; in summer most naval vessels left Hong Kong for the north and other stations. The large number of sailors, who at times outnumbered the civilian European population, was supplemented by merchant seamen of many nationalities; for by the 1890s Hong Kong had become, after London, Liverpool, and Port Said, the fourth largest port in the world in terms of seagoing tonnage", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207492, "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": 260, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "252\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nMay 1942. Each page bore many signatures and Saito now wanted a similar undertaking to be given but with only one signature on each page. The original undertaking as presented to us in Bowen Road read \"I hereby swear that I shall not make any attempt to escape whilst I am a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army. Dated this day 17th year of Showa”. In 1942 we had had much debate with the Japanese over the text of this declaration and eventually the staff signed the following version, “I hereby swear that I shall not make any attempt to escape, and understand that I am on parole and may not leave the hospital precincts without permission from the Commandant\". In 1945 Saito insisted upon the first version given above. I had a long argument with him saying that we had signed the alternative version in 1942 since we did not regard ourselves as prisoners, to which Saito retorted that in fact we had been and were being treated differently from other prisoners. All members of the staff signed the new undertaking, but the old date of 26 May 1942 was used in the 1945 form.\n\nOn 31 May the guard sergeant told me at 4 p.m. that a working party of 40 men was coming from Sham Shui Po and were to be accommodated in the church. We put up beds with mattresses and two pillows each, the beds being so closely placed as to touch each other and shortly afterwards 40 Canadians arrived with a sergeant in charge. Next day the working party went off early to Kowloon Hospital to heap earth round air-raid shelters, but they were not pressed too hard there.\n\nOn 1 June the parcels that came from our visitors included 250 eggs which we set aside for patients only. From the working party the hospital got a rumour that Sham Shui Po was sending a concert party the next day, a Saturday, and sure enough on 2 June a band and concert party numbering 41 came from camp by lorry and by march route. My diary records that we had music, both classical and Japanese, as well as dance music and variety acts. Tokunaga was present and the concert was good, but I was not allowed to do any more than provide the performers with sweet tea. On June 2 and subsequently we had no newspapers and Saito told me that none were being received in the camps either. Though our church was being used as a barrack room, services continued to be held and at this time we were again having to use ingenuity to avoid having to serve boiled rice only at meals. For example,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207494, "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": 262, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "254\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nI have no idea now what this meant. The first working party was transferred to another job and though none of the less fit had gone back to camp none of these were being worked.\n\nIt was at this time also that we ran out of rice, having deliberately issued for consumption on the scales approved by the Japanese. As a punishment Mr. Campbell and I were both slapped. We would not have run the risk of an empty rice store in earlier years but by then we were becoming more confident of our position. We did in fact go short for a day but fresh supplies came in within 24 hours. This was a very good intake, about 360 kilos, and I was able to work out a good ration on the basis of 510 grammes for 100 employed and 397 grammes for others, assuming that our stocks had to last until the end of July. We had another very good Red Cross intake on 29 June and at this time we were having 113 grammes rice for breakfast, 145 grammes for dinner and tea as well as 113 grammes for working party suppers. I learned also that much of the working party's work on air raid shelters had been undone by heavy rain. I also have a note that our steward's store was well wired up by us though I do not now remember who the predators were suspected to be.\n\nOn 7 July a Canadian officer died, admitted from Sham Shui Po on the 29 June. There was in this case a strong suspicion that the cause of death was encephalitis of the Japanese B. type. The next day a Hong Kong Volunteer died suddenly from a severe haemorrhage. On the same day the Japanese guard moved out of the Japanese half of the school building and we understood that Saito was going to live there. By 19 July Saito himself took check parades and we were still hoping to receive certain things that we had asked for such as a cross-cut saw and some drugs. On 11 July a Canadian soldier had broken his leg while working on a tunnel to be used by the Japanese as an air raid shelter. Splints were applied in a Japanese hospital and he was sent to us for admission. The working party reported to me that the tunnels they were digging were of amateurish design and were highly dangerous. I gathered that the sides and roofs were very inadequately shored up and there had been a number of falls of earth from roofs and sides. I tackled Saito at once about this, and he later told me that we could be reassured since the Japanese officer in charge said that they only needed more timbers to be used and all would be well. As a statement of the obvious this seemed to me to be pretty good.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207504, "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": 272, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "264\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nto go to St. Albert's Hospital. There was sporadic small arms fire near the places that I visited, but none seemed to be directed at us and who was shooting at whom I do not know.\n\nMy diary records, to my considerable surprise now, that I suggested to the senior British officer, Colonel Field that if the Empress of Australia was taking away the rest of the prisoners, perhaps the quartermaster and I should be left for a short time to liaise with the incoming medical services, moving to the Gloucester Hotel for this purpose. I could only have done this with Mr. Campbell's agreement and why on earth we had such a foolish idea I cannot now imagine. I considered another suggestion from Selwyn-Clarke that I should take over and organise the surgical services in the Queen Mary Hospital, but this meant an extra two months in Hong Kong and I declined the offer. Selwyn-Clarke also wanted us to send six doctors to Stanley and four to Victoria, but none stayed for this purpose so far as I know.\n\nIt was about now that I heard a story that in the last stages of hostilities in 1942, Brigade Headquarters in the area had allocated alternative accommodation in Stanley prison for St. Stephen's Hospital which was nearby. The hospital did not move and so was overrun in the fighting there. It was then that the tragedies affecting patients, nurses and medical staff occurred. This story did not give the time at which the move of the hospital was suggested, but the notice was probably short and with the small staff available, the numbers of wounded being cared for and the total involvement of our fighting troops with the enemy and so unable to help, such a move probably seemed to be impracticable to the commanding officer, as it does to me. There was also a story that the Japanese had taken photographs of empty beds fitted with sheets in the upper part of St. Albert's Hospital which were stated to be reserved for British patients while Indians who were wounded were left lying on the floor. It was said that much use of these photographs had been made in the Japanese propaganda directed at Indian troops to induce them to join the Indian National Army which collaborated with the Japanese. I knew the Matron, the nursing and medical staff of St. Albert's Hospital very well and they would never have allowed separation of patients on grounds of race. I have no doubt at all that just as we did in Bowen Road, the staff in St. Albert's would nurse side by side all patients irrespective of race.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207653, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "26\n\nDOUGLAS W. SPARKS\n\nThis article begins with a brief, general overview of the social history of the Teochiu in Hong Kong, and then outlines the Teochiu formal and informal organizational structure, with the intention of examining the nature of Teochiu solidarity. Attention then focuses upon a micro-analysis of the Teochiu population of one government housing estate in order to examine some of the processes that will have been mentioned. Tentative conclusions are then made concerning the nature of ethnicity in urban areas, as opposed to \"rural\" areas, of the Colony.\n\nCurrent anthropological approaches to the study of ethnicity view it primarily as a reflection of political economic dynamics and are oriented toward conflict and competition models while de-emphasizing the importance of cultural content as an explanatory variable of inter-ethnic interaction and conflict. The identification of cultural differences is generally, of course, a salient feature in ethnic ideology and myths and is an important aspect of ethnic stereotypes in Hong Kong. Differences between ethnic groups in Hong Kong in ritual, beliefs, and family structure, etc. are minimal however, particularly in the urban areas. \"Cultural\" explanations of ethnic solidarity in Hong Kong, as well as reductionist explanations postulating the traditional psychological tendency for Chinese from the same village or district to cohere, are insufficient. An individual has a choice as to when, if ever, and in which social contexts a particular role or \"identity\" is asserted. One can quite obviously be a \"member\" of an ethnic group and choose to ignore that membership or identify with a larger, perhaps more inclusive category or a politically dominant category. Ethnic identity is not fixed from birth; anthropologists have been particularly interested in studies of individuals who cross ethnic boundaries and become \"members\" of another ethnic group (see Barth, 1969). An individual's decision is influenced by pre-existing conditions or constraints within the social system. One purpose of this paper is to indicate several constraints influencing some Teochiu to positively assert their identity as Teochiu.\n\nEthnic Studies in Hong Kong\n\nPast studies of Chinese social organization in Hong Kong and South East Asia generally have not dealt with ethnicity as an important variable in that organization nor with different ethnic groups,\n\n1 The concern here is with studies of Chinese ethnic groups and not with studies of Westerners in Hong Kong vis-a-vis Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207681, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "54\n\nDOUGLAS W. SPARKS\n\nTABLE VI\n\nPercentage of total Teochiu population speaking Cantonese and Hoklo in different age groups, males and females combined:\n\n \n Age Group\n Cantonese\n Hoklo\n \n \n 14\n 79%\n 18%\n \n \n 15-24\n 75%\n 21%\n \n \n 25-39\n 61.6%\n 40.54%\n \n \n 40-54\n 48.6%\n 32%\n42.8%\n \n \n 55 and over\n 35.3%\n 52%\n \n \n Total\n 67%\n 27.6%\n \n\nAijmer, L. Goran 1967\n\nAnderson, E. 1967\n\nBarnett, K. M. A. 1962\n\nBarth, F. 1969\n\nBlake, C. Fred\n\nCensus & Statistics Dept., H.K. Govt. 1973\n\nCommissioner of Census Report, H.K. Govt. 1968\n\nCohen, Myron 1968\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\"Expansion and Extension in Hakka Society” JHKBRAS, 7, 1967, pp. 42-79.\n\n++\n\n\"Prejudice & ethnic stereotypes in Rural H.K.” Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers 37, pp. 90-107.\n\nReport on the 1961 Census. H.K.: Government Printer\n\nEthnic Groups & Boundaries. Boston: Little, Brown,\n\n\"Ethnolingustic Affiliation and Political Participation in the develop of a Chinese market town: Sai Kung in New Territories\" Canton Delta Seminar Conference Paper, presented at Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, April 28, 1973. Mimeograph.\n\nNegotiating Ethnolinguistic Symbols in a Chinese Market Town. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1975.\n\nHong Kong Population Housing Census, 1971 Main Report. Hong Kong: Government Printer.\n\nReport on the 1966 By-Census. Hong Kong: Government Printer.\n\n\"The Hakka or 'Guest People': Dialect as a sociocultural variable in South East China\". Ethnohistory, vol. 15, No. 3, 237-92.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207749, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "CARL T. SMITH\n\n122\n\nKwun.\" In September there is an entry for \"Li Khi Sen, from Tseang ye\". This is probably the friend Khi-sem who was one of Tsin-kau's travelling companions.\n\nThe Hong Kong missionaries were delighted with the arrival of these refugees who were willing to receive Christian instruction and baptism. They seized upon their desire to join their relatives and friends in Nanking as a God-given opportunity to put the Taiping movement upon a more solid Christian foundation. There had been much discussion regarding the type of religious belief held by the Taiping leaders, and serious doubt had arisen regarding their interpretation of Christianity. The Rev. Hamberg hoped to raise sufficient funds through his publication of The Visions of Hung Siu-Tschuen to finance Hung Jen-kan's trip to Nanking. In reporting to the Mission Society he states:\n\nI have spent much on Fung [the Hakka version of the surname Hung] and his friends, and in order not to put a burden on the Mission have translated into English the account of the first [i.e. Hung Jen-kan] and written a small book which is now ready to be printed. Fung and his two friends left today for Shanghai. I have furnished them with the three different translations of the Old and New Testaments, Barth's Biblical History, Genahr's Catechism, a calendar and other writings, also a map in Chinese of the world, a map of China and one of Palestine, a model of a steel punch, copper matrices and the usual types, in order to show how Chinese characters can be printed in the European manner. In addition a few trifles, such as telescope, compass, thermometer, knives, etc. I am often asked if I will go to Nanking, however I have decided, and will not change my mind, that I will not go until I have received a regular and definite invitation to go. I have sought to establish what my obligations and duties are in this matter. The people who were brought to me I have baptized, instructed and assisted them on the way insofar as I was able. I believe that Fung respected me and would like to see me in Nanking, as he so often said. However, we cannot be definite about it, because we do not yet know if he will be successful in arriving at Nanking, and further, we cannot be sure that his friend there will welcome the idea, or that no obstacle will be placed in the way of foreigners, or that they have a real desire to be led deeper into the truths of God's words.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207791, "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": 179, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "164 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nand gorges in their upper reaches. Yet British and French explorers light-heartedly planned roads and railways through the region, when earth moving and other civil engineering techniques were primitive by modern standards. \n\nPolitical difficulties were equally formidable. In addition to Anglo-French rivalry, there was an involved relationship between Britain, Burma, China, and the Kachin and Shan hill peoples in the borderlands. A further complication, from 1855 to 1873, was the devastation of Yunnan by the Panthay Rebellion, a Moslem uprising almost as destructive as the more famous Taiping Rebellion. \n\nAlthough the Treaty of Yandabo had established Britain in Lower Burma, Upper Burma continued as an independent state, with an ill-defined tributary relationship with China. However, during the sixty years before Britain annexed Upper Burma in 1886, Britain obtained the province of Pegu (1852), and mounted a succession of expeditions to find a practicable trade route from Burma into Yunnan, contemporary with other expeditions up the Yangtze from Shanghai. \n\nBetween Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, and the French priest M. Huc in the 1840s, practically no European had travelled in West China. So little was known of it that while their compatriots in China looked on neighbouring Szechwan as the El Dorado of the East, the British in Burma and India had their eyes on the province of Yunnan. The extravagant and over enthusiastic appraisal of Yunnan's potential wealth gave rise to what became known as the \"Yunnan Myth\". \n\nThe first British attempts to reach Yunnan and West China came from Burma in the late eighteenth century. When Captain Sorrel went to Ava in 1792 to deliver a letter to the King of Burma from Lord Cornwallis, Governor-General of India, some Burmese offered to take him overland to China. Sorrel's reference to this aroused great interest in India. Over a century earlier, Dutch East India traders in Ava and Syriam had given glowing accounts of a flourishing trade between Burma and China, conducted through Chinese merchants in Bhamo. In 1795 when Captain Michael Symes was sent on an official mission to Burma, he was instructed to “find a mart in the south west dominions of China by means of the great river of Ava”. Symes' report was enthusiastic. He said the principal export from Ava was cotton, which went up the Irrawaddy in large", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207816, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "The Ancient Mon-Pagan, Peru & Nakorn Pathom 189\n\n(Rama VI) complete with Shakespearian house and a statue to his dog whom he suspected had been poisoned by jealous courtiers.\n\nThe Pagan theme of temple paintings, though of a different period, may also be taken up again in Dhonburi, across the river from Bangkok. Dhonburi was the capital between the fall of Ayuthaya in 1757 and the establishment of Bangkok in 1782 and boasts a number of old temples, many still having their original mural paintings. The little visited Wat Wai Thepnimit is lost amid sluggish canals and has paintings in good condition dating from the late 18th century. Like many of such temples, the scene above the main door inside represents the victory of the Buddha over the temptations of Mara; the scene behind the altar shows the division of the world into paradise, earth, and hell; and at the lower levels on the sides, between the windows, are the stories from the last ten Jataka tales, while above are serried rows of alternating orahan, or devotees, and yaksa or giants. In better condition, though in not so charmingly dilapidated a building, is the temple of Wat Chaiyathit, which can only be reached by a walk by narrow canals and a railway track. The well-known paintings at the fine Wat Suwannaram on Klong Bangkok Noi need little introduction. The small dual buildings of Wat Rumarin Ratchapaksi near Wat Dusit, bombed by accident in the last war, are now at last being repaired, though not before the weather has caused considerable damage to the quality of the paintings. One of the most impressive buildings to survive the passage of time and weather is the old library at Wat Rakhang, the Ho Trai. This has three rooms and was formerly part of a dwelling of General Chakri, the founder of the present dynasty, in the 18th century. He had it converted into a library for the temple after he became king. The carved entrance doors are magnificent, and the Ayuthia period lacquered library cupboards are in very good condition. The paintings, which had been much damaged by time and smoke from a fire at the temple, are now being restored. The scenes depict barely recognisable episodes from the Thai version of the Ramayana.\n\nBangkok does not lack evening entertainment, but there is not much that can rival the setting of Krisnavara House, with its collection of antiques beside the Chao Praya River, for a performance of the now rarely presented hoon krabawk, or stick puppet theatre. The figures are clothed in 19th-century court dresses and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207847, "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": 235, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "220\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nputting the point. In the traditional Chinese view man stands in a relationship to Heaven and Earth which links him with both and causes him to stand with them as one of the three primary powers of the cosmos. The conception is as old as Chinese metaphysics and is basic to a classical work, the Book of Changes, which is cited as an authority by geomancers of the present day. True, much of what is to be heard and seen in the New Territories under the name of fung shui cannot be explained from the classical works; we are dealing here with popular religion, not an expression of canonical purity; but just as the Bible supplies conceptions to modern Christians who are not very familiar with it, so ancient Chinese thought lives on in some of the ideas of contemporary Chinese peasants.\n\n50. Again in a Western idiom, we may say that fung shui is the craft of adapting the abodes of men (graves and buildings) to the landscape. But while it may be perfectly true that geomancy has produced in the Chinese a sharpened aesthetic appreciation of their natural surroundings and led to a superb technique of landscaping, it is not in fact the physical landscape which is directly in question in fung shui. I have heard people in the New Territories commenting enthusiastically on the prospects from geomantically favourable sites; but their appreciation is grounded in their feeling for the virtues flowing from the harmony between the site, its owners, and the segment of the universe within which it is placed. Man is involved in his surroundings; in some places he feels at ease and at peace (shue fuk, he is content), the properties of the setting having an immediate effect on him and his fortunes. And it is for this reason that English-speaking Chinese will often say that fung shui is ‘psychological'. They do not mean, as one might superficially conclude, that geomancy is an illusion, a figment of the imagination; what they are asserting is that a man's mind is responding to a mysterious field of forces set up in a given place. He need not know very much about the details of fung shui as a craft or body of esoteric science; it is enough to be conscious of the few hints contained in the landscape—a stretch of still water, embracing hills—that he is being soothed and protected. 'You', living or dead, ‘are content'. That is the heart of the matter.\n\nL\n\n51. Fung shui: Winds and Waters. The Breaths (hei) which constitute the virtue of a site are blown about by the wind and held by the water. If the wind is high the Breaths will disperse; if the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207853, "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": 241, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "226\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nman with a parent to rebury and with the resources to back up his ambition will look far and wide in his search for a good site, not necessarily confining himself to the neighbourhood of his village. The poor cannot indulge themselves so; but they are unlikely in any case to reach the stage of looking for reburial sites, and the bones of their dead probably remain for ever in the urns where they were deposited after the first burial. There is no dearth of evidence that urns lie neglected for many years, at the end of their career spilling their contents on the ground. For the humble, geomantic burial plays a small role. Among the proud and the aspiring the hunt for the Dragon, a never-ending search for promotion and security, leads people in a competitive race over the hills, Fung shui in this context represents the right of individuals to outstrip their neighbours. (I have not gone into the details of burial. See B.D. Wilson, 'Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. I, 1961, pp. 115-123).\n\n60. Success which flows from fung shui raises a moral problem, for it is not a reward for merit. If the geomancer has done his job correctly Breaths will concentrate automatically, whether the descendants are good men or bad. Geomancy explains why some people succeed and others fail, even when they have the same advantages and appear to have the same chances, but, at least at first sight, it seems to obscure the role in success which may be played by moral worth. The problem is in fact raised in some of the fung shui stories current in the New Territories. They show that in reality the evil cannot expect to prosper by fung shui, however much they appear to benefit in the short run. The universe is a moral entity; principles of right laid up in Heaven are not to be denied by the workings of Earth. I heard one story in two different versions; here is a summary of its main points to illustrate the role of morality in fung shui. A poor duck-breeder one day observed a geomancer at work. The geomancer stuck a bamboo pole in the muddy duck-pond and left it there for the night. During the night it flowered. The duck-breeder stole it and replaced it with another bamboo pole to the surprise next morning of the geomancer who had expected to find it flowering. He tried again but once more was foiled by the wily duck-breeder, and so he was forced to abandon what he thought to have proved a magnificent fung shui. The duck-breeder, having stolen the knowledge of the site, ordered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207854, "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": 242, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n227\n\nhis wife to bury him in the crucial spot when he came to die, which in good time she did, wrapping him in a mat because she was too poor to pay for a coffin. Time passed and her son grew up to become a great scholar. Summoned by the Emperor to Peking he made the long journey north. On the way the boat he was travelling in got into difficulty but was saved by a god in a nearby temple. The people with whom the young scholar was travelling honoured the god for his help, but he refused to do so, going so far in arrogance as to strike the god on the head with his fan. Eventually he reached the capital and after a while returned home in triumph. He then showed himself so overbearing, especially in his behaviour towards his maternal uncle, that his mother rebuked him, reminding him that his father had died a humble death and had been buried in a mat. The scholar agreed to rebury his father in a fitting manner, but when he came to search for the body it was not to be found. While men were fruitlessly hunting for it round the spot indicated by the widow, the god whom the scholar had insulted appeared in the guise of a stranger and advised him to throw lime into the duck-pond, whereupon the body would appear. The scholar took the advice. The body rose at once to the surface but along with it came nine dead fish, only one of which had its eyes open.\n\nNine bright possibilities, that is to say, had been stored away in the fung shui; one of them had been realised in the success of the scholar — and that was now at an end; the others were ruined. (When I recounted this story to a Chinese friend in Singapore he capped it with one in which a passing scholar, on being told of the enormous success of a family which had stolen another family's fung shui and acted cruelly towards its members, sat down by the stolen grave and lamented. If such people could prosper by the principles of Earth, where were the principles of Heaven? He had hardly spoken when lightning smashed the tomb and put an end to the fortunes of the wicked family.)\n\n61. I have already referred to the tomb of Sun Yat-sen's mother in Pak Fa Lam. I was taken to see it by a part-time geomancer. (He looks like an old-fashioned scholar. In his youth he was a graduate student at a famous American university and held some official post in Canton until the arrival of the Japanese. He now teaches in Hong Kong). His analysis of the site was briefly as follows. The high peak at the rear is excellent; it stands for authority and power. The front aspect is also very good; there is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207856, "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": 244, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 229\n\nher grave was on the head her descendants would be very great men: but if on the tail they would be more humble people, perhaps officers of low degree, and, although prosperous, none would succeed to high rank.' The princess chose the tail because she preferred her descendants to stay humble, she herself having suffered so much. See Sung Hok-p’ang, ‘Legends and Stories of the New Territories”, IV. Kam T'in (continued)', The Hong Kong Naturalist, vol. VII, no. 1, April 1936, pp. 34f.)\n\n62. The term fung shui is often used to mean simply a grave, and there is no need to stress the point that burial lies at the heart of geomancy. But in fact fung shui covers all aspects of men's dwellings on earth. Every territorially defined unit of society has its fung shui, from the household up to the state. The residence of the head of the state affects the prosperity of the country. (For this reason great emphasis is often placed on the geomantic excellence of Government House). The fortunes of cities, towns, and villages depend on their physical arrangement and dominating buildings. Political units take their fate from government offices. (The fung shui of the new Fanling District Court has impressed many locals). The fung shui of an ancestral hall determines the fortunes of members of the clan. (For this reason it is hardly ever to be found inside a wai, a walled enclosure; it must have free access to its site). A house shapes the destiny of its master and those for whom he is responsible. Consequently, geomancers are often employed to advise on the siting, orientation, certain architectural features (especially height), and work—and opening-dates of domestic and other buildings. Indeed, there appears to be some specialisation among fung shui sin shaang in the New Territories, some of them putting themselves out to be experts on graves and others on buildings.\n\n63. Burial and the fung shui associated with it differ markedly in city and countryside. Only the rich among the people in the urban area can afford to escape the regimentation of their dead in cemeteries and seek geomantically favourable sites in private plots. (Some in fact acquire the right to bury their dead in land forming the traditional preserves of village communities. They may have to pay dearly for the privilege. Along one of the main roads in the New Territories there stands a pavilion, now many years old, which was put up as part of the compensation to the local people for the geomantic disturbance caused them by the burial in their area of a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207968, "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": 7, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "176\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nTse Che and Man Wo (both single surname villages of the surname Uen) also attended, not because they were related to surname groups in Ho Chung, but because they were located nearby. These last two villages contributed to the repair of the Ch'e Kung Temple in 1934. Besides the decennial ta tsiu, the entire village donated towards the costs of worship at the annual Ch'e Kung Festival.38\n\nThe Cheungs had settled in Ho Chung for several hundred years.\n\nIt is instructive to see how the Chans, a new-comer lineage, were integrated into the village. They came in the middle of the nineteenth century, and built an ancestral hall of their own in the village, decorated with exquisite carvings.* They were accepted firstly because they were invited to Ho Chung by the Lais, who had been among the first to settle in the village. Secondly, they were rich, and when they settled in the village, they set up the Luen Hing T'ong, which functioned as a money-lending trust in which other villagers of Ho Chung could hold shares. At the end of each year, the T'ong slaughtered a pig and divided the meat among the share-holders. Thirdly, as already noted, they were connected with officialdom, and were people of some influence in the county.39\n\nOther villages had institutions similar to Ho Chung's. Pak Kong had a village-wide institution known as the \"tso she\" (\"celebration at the earthgod's shrine\" or \"communal celebration\") which consisted of a religious homage and a feast at the earth-god's shrine on the Festival of the Great King Earthgod on the 15th of the Second Month. A five-year rota was set up whereby villagers took turns to be responsible for the feast. The rota was written on a wooden board that was kept in the Loks' ancestral hall. The group of villagers responsible for the worship in any year would collect the money contributions due from the other villagers, would provide and slaughter the pig that was needed for the worship, and would then mount the feast.40 In Sha Kok Mei, the term \"tso she\" was not used, but a small wooden board was circulated among resident households that took turns in groups of three to be responsible for communal worship at the beginning and the end of the year, and for worship of T'in Hau on her Festival Day at her temple at Leung Shuen Wan. Apparently,\n\n* Plate 3.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207970, "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": 9, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "178\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nTable 3. (Translation)\n\nFront:\n\nAnnual festival 19th First Month, 15th Second Month, 23rd Third Month, 5th Fifth Month, 14th Seventh Month, 24th Twelfth Month, Tung Chi in Eleventh Month, Night of 30th Twelfth Month; she t'au (leaders of the she); ALL THOSE WHO LIVE IN PAK KONG VILLAGE HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO SERVE THE AFFAIRS AND PUBLIC INTEREST OF THIS VILLAGE; work collectively for the achievements of this village, do not follow the Monroe [Doctrine].\n\nBack:\n\nGOLD Cheng Tso On, Cheng Chung, Lok Tso Po, Cheng Woh, Cheng Chan Ip, Lau T'in T'ing; WOOD Lok Shek Kam, Lok T'aai Ts'eung, Lok Shue Kam, Lok Foh Kau, Lok Yau T'aai, Lok Shai Ngau, Lok Tak Kwong; WATER Lok Ting Ngau, Lei Lam, Lei Kau, Lok Kam, Cheng Tso Ning, Lok T'aai Hei; FIRE Lok Tak Lam, Lok Shiu Ch'oh, Lok Lam Kwai, Lok Kam Uen, Lok Chi K'eung, Lok Shang, Lok Uet T'aai; EARTH Lok Fuk Shing, Lei Iu, Lei Kw'ai Cheung, Lok Kau Kei, Lok Tso On, Lei Shek,\n\nIn a slight variation, in Tai Po Tsai (near Tai Mong Tsai) and Wo Mei, instead of collecting money to buy the pig at the time it had to be slaughtered, villagers bought a piglet at the beginning of the year and participating families took turns to feed it during the year. By the end of the year, it would be slaughtered, and the meat divided. In Wo Mei, the five lineages of the village also gathered into the Ng Woh T'ong for matters that affected the entire village.42 Less formal but not less important were the \"marriage clubs\" (lo p'oh wooi) found in many villages, such as Mang Kung Uk and Hang Hau, consisting of the unmarried young men of the village. The young men of the club were obliged to help the bridegroom during wedding ceremonies, and they themselves would be helped when their turn came. In general, village ceremonies, not only weddings but also funerals, required the participation of members of the village, including those outside the immediately affected lineage. It was commonly understood that on these occasions members of the village had the right and duty to participate and to help.\n\n43", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207971, "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": 10, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "179\n\nAmong smaller villages, arrangements for co-operation often extended beyond the village itself. Hang Hau and nearby Seung Sz Wan, for instance, were closely involved in each other's celebrations. When there were celebrations in one village, members of the other village could come without invitation.44 Inter-village co-operative arrangements of one sort or another were sufficiently strong for most of the smaller villages to identify themselves as being parts of permanent village alliances. Tai Mong Tsai, Tai Po Tsai, Shek Hang, Tit Kim Hang, Tam Wat, Wong Mo Ying, Ping Tun, and She Tau formed the Paat Heung (Eight Villages); Nam Shan included also Fu Yung Pit, Kak Hang Tun, Keng Pang Ha, and Lung Mei; Pak Tam Chung included Pak Tam, Tsak Yue Wu, Wong Keng Tei, Sheung Yiu, Wong Yi Chau, and Tsam Chuk Wan; and Ngong Wo, Wo Liu, Shan Liu, Tai Wan, Tso Wo Hang, Sha Ha, Nam A, Wong Chuk Yeung, Long Keng, and O Tau formed the Shap Heung (Ten Villages). The Paat Heung had a joint school in Tai Mong Tsai; the Pak Tam Chung villages jointly worshipped the Great King earthgod near Sheung Yiu; the Shap Heung had its joint school in Tai Wan, and used to maintain collectively the T'in Hau Temple at Wong Chuk Yeung (now ruined). The larger villages, e.g. Ho Chung, Mang Kung Uk, Sha Kok Mei, Nam Wai, Tseng Lan Shue, and Pak Kong, were apparently not parties to such alliances, but regarded themselves as forming complete units in themselves.45\n\nInter-village disputes were not common, but there were some long-standing ones. Sha Kok Mei disputed with Nam Shan over tree-cutting rights. Nam Wai and Ho Chung fought over a quarrel that had started when the cows of one village damaged the crops of the other.46\n\nFestivals and customs\n\nThe major festivals in the village were the New Year, and the T'in Kei (birthday of Nui Woh, the Earth Goddess), Ts'ing Ming (spring worship at the ancestral graves), Dragon Boat, Tsat Tse (Seven Sisters), Mid-Autumn, Double-Ninth (autumn worship at the ancestral graves), and Tung Chi (winter solstice) festivals, the temple festivals of the local temples (in this area Ch'e Kung, T'in Hau, Koon Yam, and Hung Shing), the festivals of the local", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208030, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n53\n\nit helped prevent disappearance of vital parts of the trucks (and also the precious cargo) and one did not have to contend with the intelligent West China bed bugs which were liable to infest the inns.\n\nReturn to Chungking\n\nComing through the passes and down into Szechuan the first signs of spring appeared, the delicate pale green of the young willow leaves and the rich red earth contrasting with the dry, dusty, harshness of the Shensi countryside. Most of our passengers had not, one gathered, been to Szechuan before and were seeing all this fabled richness of the province for the first time. Crossing the Fu River ferry at Mienyang brought us into the plains and we came next to Ching Mo Kuan (Green Pines Pass) where the main customs and control station for Chungking was situated. This was another place where we had anticipated difficulty, especially if the negotiations had taken a turn for the worse since we left Yenan two weeks before. We pulled up near the barrier and everyone stayed in the trucks. We kept the engines running while Yu Chin-lung and I took our documents for checking to the duty officer. When asked what passengers we had we truthfully replied \"Forty members of the 8th Route Army\" which he solemnly wrote down and then chopped our pass. We were in the trucks and handing this to the sentry before the officer could report to higher authority. So, much relieved, we drove on to Chungking, off-loaded our passengers outside the city and then returned, via the upper ferry, to our South Bank base. Distance covered about 3200 kilometres in a travelling time of 32 days and, apart from our initial crash, no accidents, and few roadside repairs.\n\nThree days after our return we were again entertained by the 18th Group Army and General Chou En-lai personally thanked us for what we had done. Later we were invited to send medical teams up into the Border Region working directly with the medical authorities there. The FAU/FSU continued after Liberation and the last member left China in 1952.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208070, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n93\n\nenter the homes of the beater and her family. (Incidentally, they did the same with the \"small people\" a common man (Hsiao Jen A) who are gossips causing untold trouble. They are depicted on a black-printed charm as a row of men, and represent anyone who bears a grudge or gossips about their neighbours.)\n\nThough Ch'ao Chow and Hoklo temples have no Under Altars, keepers in temples used by these communities claim that other unspecified Hoklo and Ch'ao Chow temples do have them. In practice, however, most have a stone White Tiger, blackened with age, crouching on the floor in front of one of the secondary altars. In one Ch'ao Chow temple, what at first glance could be confusing, were two large and untarnished black and yellow striped tigers seated before the temple's Earth God. According to the watchman, they were normal tigers and not White Tigers, awaiting his orders.\n\nThe Green Horse\n\nThe second is the Green Horse (*) who occasionally has a groom though, rarely, a rider. Not surprisingly the horse actually is green, although it is possibly called so because Liu (green) is a homophone for \"lucky\". In a few temples he is colloquially referred to as the \"Money Horse\". He is to be found in several temples where there is no Under Altar, no White Tiger, and no Local Wealth God. Green Horse stand on their own four legs and are seldom made of a permanent material, though two in Macau and one in Hong Kong are made of what appears to be painted concrete about half life size. Most are coloured paper pasted over a bamboo frame, frequently decorated with tall, gold paper floral crowns and red rosettes.\n\nThe Green Horse is variously offered prayers and incense for assistance in keeping in touch with distant relatives, for bearing petitions to unapproachable Gods, for stopping quarrels and rumours and, according to some, for wealth. Some even refer to the Green Horse as the Protector of Women. Many Green Horses seen in temples are heavily ensnared or trussed with long, fine red (or on very rare occasions, white) cords bound around the forelegs. Occasionally pairs of red chopsticks are bound to the Horse by these red cords. Both the chopsticks and the cords are charms, placed there by wives who pray that their travelling or erring husbands will be faithful to them, or return immediately to them leaving the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208073, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "96 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\npasted up on the upper lintel of the altar, or across the sides, where they remain until Spring-cleaning, or just drop off with time. They are called petitions, Pang (#). Another form of charm connected with the Green Horse is a simple postcard-sized piece of rice paper, block-printed in three colours, depicting a galloping green horse and his groom, on which is the petition (****). This is only used during the lunar New Year and, too, is burnt. One temple keeper very carefully folded such a paper inside a piece of red paper, producing a package no larger than a cigarette, ready for devotees to burn. \n\nOccasionally, green and red paper cut-outs are pasted on the Under Altar, or tied to the Green Horse's nose, head or back. These are said to represent \"messages\" from humans to the Gods asking for general benefits, and passed directly on by the Green Horse without going through a spirit medium or being dispatched by incineration. These \"messages\" without inscription are entrusted to the Green Horse at all times of the year. Although borne aloft to the Gods by the Green Horse, he is never expected to bring back a reply; the general benefits doubtless will manifest themselves in time. \n\nPaper charms obtained from the temple keepers, bearing printed prayers and pictures begging the Gods for safety, protection and blessings, are thrust into the belt or hands of the Local Wealth God or again tied to the back of the Green Horse. \n\nThe slips themselves go under the generic title for red ones of \"the Nobleman\", and for green ones of “Green Horse\". These are also regarded by many as charms to ward off demonic influence and not as messages, and are therefore pasted on certain altars and figures. \n\nOccasionally street shrines, such as the one on the corner on Taipingshan Street and Pound Lane, dedicated to the local Earth God (), have a further role as an Under Altar. The roof of the shrine and wall above it are heavily coated in red and green Green Horse and Nobleman slips which normally should be burnt. Many of the slips of paper are, in this case, pasted over the top of white or black cut-out papers which represent the Mean Ones, the Hsiao Jen. These appear in two forms; as individual human figures with large ears in black paper, and as white or black cut-out slips which look like carnival masks for a man with five eyes!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208075, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "98\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\ncharm papers, some new, but mostly faded and tattered. The temple keeper said that supplicants had stuck these on to ward off demonic influences, each being a plea to Chao to order his tiger to devour baneful demons. This image is not in the Disaster Altar but its function is exactly as though it were. According to the temple keeper it is an old image, pre-1840.\n\nThe cut-out red and green charms, called Green Horse and Nobleman, should not be confused with yet other red paper charms with cut-out holes in them, which are pasted annually on lintels of altars, temple doorways and shrines, thus reconsecrating them. These are called slips (piao) (*) and come in three sizes, small, medium and large (1-✯✯). Most of them bear a small square of gold paper pasted on them.\n\nAlthough only Taoist popular religion temples have Under Altars, there is also a Buddha who comforts “in time of calamity”, Yao Shih Fo (***) (whose full title includes the phrase “disaster” “Hsiao Tsai Yen Shou” (5* £**). He never appears in Under Altars.\n\nAnother \"Under Altar\"\n\nAnother small inset Under Altar at ground level, which is nearly always central under the main altar, is the altar to the tutelary deity of the temple, Ti Chu Fang (H). It is often called the Prosperity Hall and is unconnected with our study. It consists of a tiny open fronted \"box”, lined with red or orange paper, containing only one or two small red plaques dedicated to the tutelary deity (£* 五土龍神;護廟地主財神),(五方五土地主財神) or (前後地主 神財).\n\nIn one temple only, in Wanchai, a second altar under yet another side altar, contains a large image of the local Earth God (No2) which is normally on a side altar or beside the temple entrance. Behind him is pasted an orange paper bearing black characters describing the Earth God as the Controller of Wealth, and naming in a parallel row of characters the other major Cantonese Wealth God \"Ts'ai Po Hsing Chun\" (# $ £*) who is not represented by an image in this instance. This is a rogue disposition, doubtless ordered by a well-meaning but ignorant temple committee.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208079, "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": 118, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "102\n\nYUEN-FONG WOON\n\nat Kwong-ue Ancestral Hall and all male members were entitled to the ritual pork there. In Freedman's terminology, the Kwaan of Na-loh was a segment of the \"localized lineage\" of T’oh-fuk, while the Kwaan at Lung-tsai She was a branch of \"the dispersed lineage\" of the Kwaan at T’oh-fuk with an intermediate market town, Che-hom, as its ritual headquarters.\n\nBesides ritual connections with T'oh-fuk, the two villages were similar on two other counts. Firstly, both exhibited a pattern of residential segregation. In Na-loh, the Kwaan occupied ten alleys to the east of the village while the Oo occupied the remaining six alleys to the west. In Lung-tsai She, the Kwaan lived at the village head, the Tang in the middle and the Wong at the village tail. Secondly, there were very little intra-village marriages. My Kwaan informants from Na-loh had not heard of the Kwaan marrying the Oo there. One said, \"They might marry the Oo from other villages but never in Na-loh itself.\" When asked why, he replied, \"I do not know, it just didn't happen. The Oo were low class people, no one knew how they supported themselves.\" Informants also answered in the negative when I asked them about the incidence of marriages between the Kwaan, the Tang and the Wong in Lung-tsai She.\n\nDespite these similarities, the two multi-surname villages were very different in ceremonial life. Na-loh exhibited a pattern of ritual segregation. There were two ancestral halls in the village: the bigger one in the middle for the Kwaan, the smaller one in the western corner for the Oo. Each had its own corporate property to sustain the rituals. These ancestral halls were similar to the ones found in the vicinity. In the middle of each hall was an altar. Under it was the Earth God Shrine. On top was hung a wooden board with the name of the hall. Below this board were two large ancestral tablets dedicated to the founder and his wife. On the altar itself were numerous tablets which were placed according to the genealogical hierarchy. These were admitted any time into the ancestral hall without a fee. But during the period of major repair or enlargement of the hall, a fund raising campaign would be held and any member who wanted tablets to be admitted ahead of the genealogical position would have to pay five dollars for each tablet. During this period, some even put their own tablets, known as \"long-life tablets\" (寿牌) there.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208081, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "104 \n\nYUEN-FONG WOON \n\nHeaven image and place it in their own tang-liu. Whoever had a son born that year would buy a lamp and hang it there. The number of lamps thus meant the number of additions to the lineage. If one's lamp had not been lit at the tang-liu during the year of his birth, he would not have the right to receive the ritual meat at his ancestral hall, \n\nThe lantern remained lit until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. On that day, each lineage lighted a whole chain of beautifully decorated firecrackers and then sent the hang-tseung (be it Kwaan-kung or the Goddess of Heaven) back to its own heung temple where it would remain until the following New Year. Whoever caught the first firecracker falling down would have all the luck for the year. So everyone struggled to catch it. Fights often occurred in the attempt. This was known as the fa-paau event (打炮). \n\nAnother event connected with the New Year Festival was the village opera. Sometimes professionals were invited to perform puppet shows; sometimes a Cantonese Opera troupe was invited and sometimes the villagers themselves performed. In all these cases, the Kwaan and the Oo organized their own performances. \n\nThe worship of the Earth God happened on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh lunar month. The Kwaan and the Oo worshipped their own Earth Gods in their own ancestral hall. \n\nIn contrast to Na-loh, Lung-tsai She was a picture of integration in its ceremonial life. There were no ancestral halls in the village for the Kwaan, the Wong or the Tang, only a community temple. Nonetheless, my informants called it their \"village ancestral hall”. This was probably because it had a lay-out similar to an ancestral hall. Like the latter, there was a huge wooden board inside the temple with the name Lung-tsai Hall (龍仔堂) written on it. Below this was an altar for putting all the sacrificial meat. Underneath was an Earth God shrine. But unlike an ancestral hall, there were no tablets at all in the temple. \n\nThe village also owned a hang-tseung of the Goddess of Heaven which was placed in a multi-surname heung temple on the outskirts of Ts'ung-long Heung. The hoi-tang ceremony was performed in the Lung-tsai Hall instead of a tang-liu. On New Year's day, the Wong, the Kwaan and the Tang each sent representatives to form a joint procession to take the Goddess back to the hall. When the \n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208082, "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": 121, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CEREMONIAL LIFE OF 2 MULTI-SURNAME VILLAGES\n\n105\n\nGoddess came, firecrackers would be lit. That was when the fa-paau event occurred.\n\nThe Spring Rites ceremony and the hoi-tang ceremony took place at the same time. After the Goddess of Heaven was installed in the Lung-tsai Hall, the Kwaan, the Wong and the Tang performed the kowtow and the three prostrations in no special order whatsoever. Whoever had a son born that year would hang the lantern there on the same day. After the ceremony, there was a feast. As there was no temple property, each villager brought his own meat for the feast. Occasionally, the village opera would crown the event. The Goddess of Heaven then remained in the Hall until the end of the year when it would be sent back to the same heung temple just for a few days before the next New Year.\n\nBesides the fa-paau, the hoi-tang ceremonies, the Spring Rites, and the village opera, there was also the worship of the Earth God on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh lunar month. This again was participated jointly by the Kwaan, the Wong and the Tang together in the Lung-tsai Hall.\n\nNot only were the three lineages in Lung-tsai She co-operating in celebrating their festivals of the year, they were also very integrated in their economic life. Those who wanted to rent or sell land would offer it to the villagers first, be they members of the Kwaan, the Wong or the Tang, before they would offer it to people outside the village. This was in direct contrast to the practice in Na-loh. There, both private and corporate property were open to bidding every three years. Only the Kwaan could bid for Kwaan land and the Oo for Oo land. If no tenants were found among the Kwaan in Na-loh, Kwaan land would be offered to tenants in the rest of T'oh-fuk; if no tenants were found among the Oo in Na-loh, Oo land would be offered to the Oo outside the village.\n\nBurton Pasternak, in his work Kinship and Community in Two Chinese Villages (Stanford 1972), has given a detailed description of two multi-surname villages in Taiwan-Tatich and Chungshe--which may throw some interesting lights on the differences between the two multi-surname villages in Hoi-p'ing described in this paper.\n\nTatich was similar to Lung-tsai She in social organization. Firstly, none of the lineages there had an ancestral hall of its own or owned corporate property. All the members worshipped in a community temple. Secondly, like Lung-tsai She, members had the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208091, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "114\n\nGREGORY E. GULDIN\n\nand Tsat Tsz Mui Road became the foci of middle-class Shanghaiese life in Hong Kong (see Fig. 1). If there was ever a time that North Point had a majority non-Guangdongese population, this was it.*\n\nBy the early 1960s, however, changes had occurred in North Point which were having a profound effect on the area's demographics. A high-rise apartment building boom, replacing many of the post-war three or six-storey structures with 20-storey buildings, had led to an oversupply of apartments and a consequent drop in rents. Middle-income Guangdongese, who had been moving into North Point slowly but surely throughout the 1950s, could now afford to live in the once exclusive neighborhood and they poured into the area. Soon they found themselves the overwhelming majority not only in the high-rise buildings but in all of North Point as well.\n\nThe Shanghaiese, certainly, could not fill all the empty spaces, for their immigrative tide had already begun to ebb. Since the late 1950s, there had been a net outflow of Shanghaiese from North Point as those who had found ways to replenish their wealth moved to richer areas and the many who had not adjusted so well, pauperized and forced into lower-status occupations, were no longer able to afford the high rents of Fort Street and North Point and also moved away. With a dearth of available Shanghaiese residents, the old system by which North Point's Shanghaiese had maintained their neighborhood's Shanghaiese identity by permitting only Shanghaiese (or approved others) entry into their three-storey buildings — rapidly collapsed under the sudden challenge of the seemingly cavernous 20-storey high-rises. As the Shanghaiese began to leave, another minority population, the Fujianese, began to arrive in North Point in greater and greater numbers until their total eventually surpassed their predecessors' and \"Little Shanghai\" was eclipsed by \"Little Fujian.\"\n\n+\n\nTo \"Little Fujian\"\n\nMost Fujianese who arrived in North Point in the late 1950s to form the basis of a future \"Little Fujian\" community had ironically already been living in a Fujianese community. Since the early 1950s, the few thousand Fujianese resident in Hong Kong had been living in Hong Kong Island's Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Poon districts, areas close to the city's commercial and trading centers. As the Fujianese (along with the Guangdongese) are one of Southern China's peoples who have adopted the strategy of seeking overseas", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208129, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "152\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nused by villagers occurred in 1931, when a man applied for a matshed permit for a small area in the middle of the beach at Tai Wan village on Po Toi. I took a launch there to see the place and found he had picked the centre of an area on which were a large number of poles used by the villagers to support bamboos for drying nets and similar purposes: so after a few enquiries I told the applicant he could not have that place. (That was the day I found a fine shouldered stone adze-head on the path above the village at the 150 ft. contour). Another very different case was that of a house built on a levelled site on a low hill above Muk Min Ha, Tsun Wan: the contractors mishandled the levelling so badly that the earth fill was nearly all washed down into the village and raised its lanes by 2 or 3 feet, making a fearful mess: this was about 1926.\n\nDuring my term of office the resumption of the Shing Mun Valley for reservoir construction was carried through, the D.O. North doing the actual negotiation, which was long and difficult. The problem was where to resettle the five displaced villages, and before a site was found enquiries were made in all directions, even as far afield as North Borneo. Some village elders were sent there to see the area offered, but their report was very adverse; there were too many corrupting influences there to suit their people — all Hakkas — who naturally wished to bring up their children in proper surroundings, not among brothels, opium dens and spirit shops.\n\nOne of the quietest parts of the District was the area of the Lyemun and Hang Hau peninsulas, where the traditional ways of life were kept going, and people rarely dealt in land, or brought their disputes to me. Hang Hau peninsula was served by only two good lines of communication; the Hang Hau ferry from Shaukiwan, connecting with a launch that ran from the east side of the Hang Hau isthmus to Saikung, and a solidly built Chinese paved road running along the ridge north and south down the peninsula. On Nam Tong, by the Fat Tau Mun, stands a fort with a gun platform on the south rampart for light artillery; this was said to have been a pirate stronghold originally. West of this fort lay some old deserted fields, which at the time of my visit were being tilled by a squatter. I suggested to him that he might become a regular land-owner and start paying Crown rent, but apparently the rent suggestion frightened him off, for next year the land was deserted.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208153, "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "176 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\n(usually brought in by boat at extra cost) to some lofty spot to which the only access was by hill path and sometimes not even that. 23. Other visitors to the hills at the grave worshipping festivals include persons from outside the Colony who, on account of old and important ancestral graves located by geomancers in time past, have long been accustomed to make the annual pilgrimage. This tradition has been eroded by the establishment of the People Republic in 1949, though some persons have continued the visits intermittently. In one case known to me at Lo Wai, Tsuen Wan, where the grave was repaired in the Hsien Feng reign (1851-1861), and the people came from beyond Sham Chun Market in Po On county adjoining the New Territories, the family have not come for many years now. The geomantic name of the site is \n\nPre-Chinese Occupation \n\nNE \n\n24. Another aspect of the mountain is its pre-Chinese connections. These are now very difficult to ascertain and one would need to comb the hillside for evidence of pre-Chinese occupation such as field systems and irrigation works, and look closely into the place names of localities, fields and villages, to see which of them contain signs of pre-Chinese words, together with the nature and location of the earth shrines of the area. Mr. K.M.A. Barnett has done a lot of work generally on this subject and has prepared a name list for 150 words which he thinks descend from and relate to pre-Chinese languages in the Hong Kong area (see JHKBRAS 14 (1974), \n\nResources \n\n25. Resources of the mountain included mineral deposits — the largest prewar wolfram workings were at Shing Mun (Davis: 116) \n\nand kaolin clay used in the pottery kilns long established at Wun Yiu near Tai Po (JHKBRAS 15 (1975) 291-2). Other clay was specially used for mud bricks, notably at the village now known as Ta Chuen Ping near Upper Kwai Chung. Another resource, long since exhausted, was the forest trees used for charcoal burning, once a flourishing local industry all over the New Territories. The memory of both trees and of this old occupation remains at one of the place names at Shing Mun, known as Tan Chong (炭廠) or 'charcoal factory', in which there were some houses already abandoned from the early years of this century.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208161, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "184\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n\"The burial ground is situated near Chai Wan Kok, Tsun Wan. Some time ago, about ten years after the Territory was leased to Great Britain, some natives of Tsun Wan village applied to the H.K. Govt. for a piece of land near the grave to erect some houses, but the proposed area affected the Fung Shui of the said grave. The village Elders of the various branches of the Tang family assembled, and a joint petition was submitted to the District Officer in the names of the descendants. Thanks to this Official the proposed sale was withdrawn. It was afterwards put on record that the site of the grave was to be preserved for ever. Subsequently new roads were constructed by the P.W.D. and the line of one proposed road was across the grave site. The Elders of the Tang family, fearing that this might affect the \"force of the movement of the green dragon,” again assembled and petitioned H.E. the Governor, praying that the line be moved to the foreshore of the site. This was done. In the 6th moon of the 12th year of the Chinese Republic, (1923) a villager of Tsun Wan dug earth on the right side of the ancestral grave, that is, in Chai Wan Kok village, thereby affecting the \"force of the movement of the coming dragon.\" Another petition was sent to the District Officer, who inspected the grave personally. After that earth cutting was prohibited, and the ancestral grave preserved.\"\n\nWe then proceeded to Kam Tin itself where, in front of the Kam Tin Rural Committee Office, we were greeted by an impressive body of lineage elders, treated to a dim sum (*) repast and shown a number of interesting relics handed down through the centuries. These included a painting with imperial calligraphy stated to date from Sung times, and a number of other paintings.*\n\nOur next stop was at Au Tau cross roads to see grave No. 5, that of TANG Wai-kap, the husband of the Sung refugee princess referred to in the Notes.\n\nFrom Au Tau cross roads we went on to the Pok Oi Hospital near Yuen Long and walked into an area of low hills, across a stream, where we inspected grave No. 2. This is located in what is obviously considered to be a very favourable fung shui area because the adjoining ground is thickly covered with graves.\n\nAfter returning to Pok Oi Hospital, we went by bus to Wang Chau behind Yuen Long where we walked through the village and across the fields to the foothills of an adjacent hill area. We went first to grave No. 1 and from there along a winding path to grave No. 4 which is located some 500 yards to the south. Both graves are in excellent positions, and like No. 3 have granite pillars with lion\n\n* These have been reproduced at pp. 112-115 of the Inauguration Publication of the Tang Clansmen Association (Inc. 1965), in Chinese, of which there is a copy in the Chinese Library, University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208256, "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": 295, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "Plate No. 27. The earth god shrine in Pound Lane, Tai Ping Shan Street, above which Green Horse and Noblemen slips have been pasted over the white slips of varying shapes called the \"Mean Ones\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208336, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "44 \n\nKEITH STEVENS \n\n1871) offered sacrifices at the City God temple and reported, in writing, that he and the whole family with gratitude had made an image of the Duke Wei which he presented to undergo the rite of consecration, so that it would protect all members of his family and all his domestic animals and poultry. The image is of a seated soldier, dressed in armour and military cap, his right hand is clenched and rests on his right knee. His left hand, the first and fifth fingers only, pointing vertically, is held at waist height in a magical sign. Wei had a gilded face, traces of which can still be seen, five tufts of black beard, the stubble only remaining and gilt armour covered by a red and blue robe again only traces of which are still visible. This image was blackest and greasiest of all and is quite surprisingly handsome now that the film of filth has been removed. Wei could possibly be Yu-ch'ih Ching-te (*), the Door Guardian who according to Mathews' dictionary is well-known as one of the two door guardians on temples and is “depicted with a black face and the fingers of one hand twisted up\". The image, dressed in loose robes over armour and chain mail, has a gilded face but otherwise, has his fingers twisted up. In reality Yu-ch’ih was a general who served the T'ang Emperor T'ai Tsung in his wars against rebels and died in 659 A.D. \n\nThe fourth image (Plate 5), also from Shan Men district, Wu Kang county in Hunan and dedicated in 1938 is of the bodhisattva Kuan Yin. The image, easily identifiable as such by her five-leafed bodhisattva crown, beads and vase, is seated cross-legged on a lotus, and dressed in gilded robes, The slip of paper in Kuan Yin's back relates that Petitioner and worshipper Mrs. Yin Wu-chi together with her five sons, four daughters-in-law, and one grandchild, on the 21st of the 6th moon of the 27th year of the Chinese Republic (18th July 1938) offered sacrifices to the Earth God at the City God temple in Lao Chai, presented and installed a new image of Kuan Yin. This has been done, the slip said, so that this Buddhist deity can be resorted to in her natural form and can kindly bestow good luck and eternal protection and prosperity on the Yin family and its future generations. In words of glowing praise, the petitioner described the heart, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, the soul, the gall, the eyes, teeth, the bones, the bowels and the spirit of Kuan Yin, as 'the liver of a green dragon', 'lungs of a white tiger', ‘kidneys \n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208338, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "46\n\nKEITII STEVENS\n\nMu. The whole is best known as a Taoist Heaven (*). The temple at its peak bears the title of Fan Ch'ih Kung (£) \"The Palace of the Essence of Brahma\". The slip of paper in Tou Mu's back relates that Huang Wen-yuan, a sincere believer, born on the 27th day, 11th moon of the Year i wei (about December, 1835), residing south of Lu Ling City, Chi An Prefecture, Kiangsi Province, together with the whole of his family, on a lucky day of the 9th moon, of the Year keng wu during the Tung Ch'ih reign (about October, 1870), prayed before Tou Mu stating, \"I respectfully implore Most Reverend Tou Mu, a heavenly Goddess of Sacred Virtue, having the immense brilliance of T'ien Hou, generosity, the magic powers of suppressing demons and spirits, and the ability to produce amulets and prescriptions for saving people with serious afflictions, to effectively respond to my earnest prayers and wishes, and wield her supernatural powers to protect all the members of my family and to increase not only the number of children but also all kinds of happiness and prosperity\".\n\nOf the score or so images, only three deities are categorically identifiable, Kuan Ti, Kuan Yin, and Chao Kung-ming, the deities of loyalty, mercy and wealth respectively. Two of the images seem to be local Earth Gods (+) (Plate 8). They are of a style very commonly seen but with what are probably provincial characteristics. They are seated old men, clutching a fly whisk by the end of its handle allowing the handle itself to rest along the forearm and the whiskers to hang from about the elbow. They have a \"shoe\" of gold in their left hand, long white beards, white eyebrows and white hair under a green floppy form of skull cap with their hair drawn up into a bun through a hole in the top of it. They are wearing long robes bound by a red belt tied in a bow at the front, and black shoes. A female carved in the same pose, holding a fly whisk in the same manner, and dressed in a floral robe but without the “shoe\" of gold, has unbound feet, and hair, without a cap, drawn into two short pigtails. She may perhaps, be the consort of the Earth God.\n\nA final image, unidentified, has a spectacular face (Plate 9). He is an unidentified monk, seated cross-legged on a bench and with the ends of his robes hanging beneath him concealing the bench. He holds a fly whisk in his right hand in the same manner as the Earth God and in his left hand he holds a rosary. He has the face of an elderly man but with the characteristics more frequently", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208356, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "64\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nA chronicler of Yuanjiang2 states that people used cut paper 'to hang money on the mountain'. This was called 'to drink wine on the grave and hang up.' The chronicler goes on to say:\n\nIf it is graves of newly buried, then there is affection. On Earth God Day and earlier, one suspends and sweeps. The proverb says: For the new graves one does not pass she. For old graves one suspends when thirty nights have passed.14 A record of local customs in Yiyang tells us that at Qingming to sweep the graves were repaired. This was called sao mu 'the graves'. Paper money was suspended on the graves. This was called gua shan 'to hang up on the mountain'.15 From Baling we learn that, in the Qingming solar period, women hung up cut paper strips on the graves. It was called gua fen 'to hang on the grave'. Paper money was burnt and wine poured out. It is said that this practice gave rise to much mournful thought 哀思.16\n\nIn Anxiang it was the practice that 'scholars' and 'commoners' swept their grave mounds: Officials arrange money, prepare cattle, and arrange in order wine. Thereby are made ji sacrifices.17\n\nIn Hanzhou the graves were swept and there was much offering.18 In Jingshan the graves were visited, there were ji offerings, sweeping, and suspension of paper money on them.19 Similarly, in Wuchang, the old graves were swept and paper money hung up on them. Here people encircled the grave wailing loudly.20\n\nIn Chongyang everyone made ji offerings at the graves. People used 'top branches' with paper money on top of the graves.21 In Yingshan it was the practice to construct offering tables in front of the graves. This was called 'to welcome (the ancestors?) to return'. This celebration was continued up to the end of the moon.22\n\nI said above that Qingming is a period of about fifteen days. When our sources mention visits to the graves we may assume that these were spread out over this duration. It may well be that the visits were initiated on the Qingming day, the first day of the solar period: I will soon provide some evidence for the importance of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208357, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n65\n\nthe first day or days. But before we continue to discuss such social messages as may have been conveyed by way of the grave ritual, I wish to draw some further attention to the distribution in time of grave worship. Consider the following cases:\n\n+\n\nIn Baling, it is recorded, all families cut paper, 'climb the mounds' £*, and repair the graves on the third day of the third moon.23 Grave offerings were considered at Gold Food or Hanshi in Wuling.24 From Zhongxiang #the chronicler reports that on the same date sons and daughters pay respect with cattle meat as ji offerings on the graves of the deceased. Paper streamers were hung up and the graves were worshiped #. Loud lamenting was to be heard.25 In Jiangxia the graves were swept at Cold Food.26 Cold Food is an occasion of one to three days, celebrated 105 days after the winter solstice. This means that it coincides with the opening days of the Qingming solar period. There is good reason to return to this calendar event in the following discussion. In Baling the grave worship had crossed from the solar calendar to the lunar almanac; the third day of the third moon will be a varying solar date in the spring.\n\nSome other data are more interesting--and puzzling. We find, widely dispersed in time, grave worship of a form which strongly resembles the accounts presented above. Consider the following notes: The chronicler of Baling tells us:\n\nthe people during the leisure of the first moon pay respect # to and sweep the graves. It is named 'to pay respect to the year on the grave' Moreover, matters of death resemble the way of life 車死如生之道也.27\n\nThe last phrase may be taken to mean that the paying of respect at or on the graves in the festive season of the first moon followed an order which resembled the conventions of paying respect between living relatives at the lunar New Year.\n\nWe have noted already that grave worship occurred in Yuanjiang on Earth God Day in the second moon,28 before the spring equinox. A further record from Wuchang states that in that ‘county\", in the second moon, on Earth God Day people si je offered fresh things on the graves.29 On the same day the graves in Chongyang were decorated with 'top branches' and were given ji offerings. In the same locality it was customary to make ji offerings on the graves on the sixth day of the sixth moon to the shen † spirit(s?) of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208362, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "70\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nhells. The usual way of converting paper money to the death realm is to burn it. In terms of calendar events54 it seems possible to argue that yang ancestors are provided with 'valuables' by way of burning. But burning is not used on the graves—with one exception, on record from Baling.\n\n+\n\nInstead, the yin ancestors receive their share of paper wealth by way of the medium of bamboo. How that medium ‘operates' remains as unclear to me as the working of fire in the same capacity in the many important burning ceremonies. This particular aspect of bamboo may be complemented by others. Apart from the protective, cleaning properties, mentioned above, bamboo is also linked to productive forces. The hollow bamboo is, in 'general' Chinese thought, contrasted with solid fir tree, both being antonymous ‘exhibitions' of the element wood. Wood is one of the Wu hing £ fj, five ‘elements' (or perhaps better, activities), wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Again, the element wood is linked to east, spring and green colour. Here I shall not pursue such intricacies of classification. Instead I shall venture a pure, and to some minds probably wild, guess that bamboo branches with paper money inserted on the grave is a representation of a rice plant in ear. Bamboo and paper money may have formed a sign constellation designating rice straw and rice grain. If we accept this, at least for the sake of the argument, then we may proceed to say that the plant by its 'roots' links the 'grain' hung up in the branches with the soil in which are the yin ancestors. Thus it may be argued that the act of 'planting' a paper money bamboo on a grave is a reversed reaping.\n\nIn an attempt to make this piece of guesswork more plausible we must refer the reader to the suggestions with regard to the structure of the Chinese calendar which were presented above. I maintained that in Central China, Qingming is a symbolic correlate to sowing and Chongyang the symbolic correlate to reaping. I will return to this discussion in the final paragraphs of this essay; suffice here to mention that if my propositions are 'true', the yin ancestors are those entities which are 'responsible' for the agricultural production and the main providers of rice. Through the roots and stalks of rice, which are a medium linking Earth and human beings, paddy is sent by the ancestors to their living progeny. The grain is a gift from them to reciprocate the Qingming offerings, the paper money provided by the living, which is 'seeped' through the bamboo branches down into Earth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208364, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "GÖRAN AIJMER\n\nfor wine are used, jiu H, and it's 'sweet wine'. It is hard to tell from the data whether different kinds of wine were used on different occasions. More generally, we may remember that wine is manufactured from rice; in fact, it is rice transmuted into liquid form.\n\n7. Food\n\nFood was sacrificed and eaten on the graves after they had been swept. Again, the lack of detailed data makes it difficult to interpret the presenting of food as a ritual act. Some notes could be observed here. In Yiyang people ate 'stalks and grass', which, being unusual food, probably signified 'non-rice' or 'non-food'.65 We are told that in Anxiang officials prepared 'cattle'. The term may have a more narrow sense of 'beef'. Meat seems to have been paired with rice wine in many sacrifices throughout the area: on the Lantern Festival (in the first moon) in Jiangling, on Earth God Day in Wuling and Zhongxiang,7 on the Dragon Boat Festival (in the fifth moon) in the Yozhou prefecture (around Baling), and Yunmeng #,68 on Zhongyuan (in the seventh moon) in Wuling,69 and on Churia, New Year Eve, in Jiangling, Hanzhou, Jingshan, Chongyang, and Yingshan.70\n\nAgain, in the temple dedicated to General Goan in Mienyang, mentioned above, the offerings on the 13th day of the fifth moon consisted of 'cattle' meat and sweet wine. A chronicler mentions that in Tauyuan, at mourning, there was an 'excess' of slaughtering.71\n\nIf we assume that the wide category of sheng-cattle-indicates that cows, oxen and buffalos, and such bovine animals were of primary interest as slaughtering animals on Qingming (although pigs may have been included in the category), it may be interesting to associate that circumstance not only with the excessive slaughtering which was part of the mourning practices in Tauyuan, but also with the display of a clay oxen at the Lichum 'Establishment of Spring' festival around the 5th of February in the solar calendar.72 In Chongyang the 5th day of the fifth moon was called niu ri ✈ a Ox Day. Then the buffalos or cows were fed, and it was not allowed to whip the beasts or swear at them on this day.73 These practices seem all to have a close link with agriculture.74\n\nThe fact that cattle was modelled in clay seems to indicate that the nature of cattle was earthly. The breaking of the clay oxen may,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208367, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA \n\n75\n\nlinguistic terms and customary conduct. Ta qing may not only have been an expression of periphery, it may also have been a ritual activity of visiting non-agricultural, non-productive land: 'the people tread on the green on the outlying wastelands'.94 It is a visit to the yin ancestors in their graves and the yin ancestors are, by virtue of the location of their graves, part of nature.\n\n11. Worship to the Family Spirits.\n\nOne piece of information tells us that in Yingshan people made gong & offerings to the jiashen, 'the family spirits'.95 This may be an offering in the ancestor hall but jiashen might also mean something like 'household gods'. The latter interpretation is the more likely. However, if jiashen should mean 'dead forefather' it must then be an offering in the ancestor hall. The term shen indicates this, and furthermore, the grave offerings are described after this entry, so the gong and the jiao to the graves must be different. According to my previous preliminary analysis of the Chinese calendar system as a system of ancestor worship, Qingming should definitely not be a day for worship to the tablets in the hall. Curiously enough, it may be that this gong is linked to the willow twigs. The chronicler says:\n\nthis day people collect willow twigs and make offerings to the family spirits. Some insert [willow] in the hair at the temples.\n\nSo it may be that this note should be interpreted in such a way that the use of willow was a gong offering to the jiashen, probably the protective godlings of the household.\n\n12. A Hypothesis.\n\nWhat bearing have these data on my earlier studies in the calendar system of ritual events in traditional Chinese society? Arguing from materials from the middle Yangzi valley I have maintained that the Qingming festival is a symbolic statement on the sowing of rice, and I have pointed to some similarities between the spring practices and the customs of Chongyang in the autumn. In both cases we deal with ritual gatherings of people away from built-up areas in natural surroundings. The main difference is that at Qingming activities were focussed on the ancestral graves, at Chongyang on mountain tops. I proposed that Qingming had affinity with yin ancestors, graves, earth and underground. Chongyang,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208368, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "76\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nby contrast, implied striving upwards, ascension, obtaining affinity with heaven and yang. Like Qingming, Chongyang is a visit to the dead, but to the yang ancestors. This antonymic contrast is reduced somewhat by the circumstance that graves are 'mountains, and grave climbing 'is' mountain climbing. Chongyang is, as it were, 'more' mountain than Qingming.\n\nIn our analysis we have found a correlation between the ceremonial acts of Qingming and agricultural technical acts. The graves are cleaned and presents offered on them. Also the seed beds are cleaned and seeds sown on them. Yin ancestors and earth are one and the same. But it may be that the concern of the Qingming activities is a more narrow interest than 'earth' as a general category. Ritual awareness and practical interest are focussed on the seed beds. The grave is treated as a rice nursery. At the same time it is a mountain. The grave is a sign in which is encoded a yin-yang antonymy. The same antonymy is, in turn, explicitly encoded in the contrast mountain-seed bed. The yin aspect of the grave connects with the preparation and sowing of the seed bed. Meat is presented to the grave, and the soil of the nursery is fertilized. Meat stays on the grave's surface; similarly the fertilization is received by the top soil. Rice is allowed to seep into the grave in liquid form as wine, and rice grain penetrates the earth.\n\nSimultaneously the graves are conceived of as mountains. The bamboo money trees make sense in terms of both aspects. Partly the branches may have been protective, but I have also suggested the possibility that bamboo formed a medium over which paper money was transferred to the dead. This ritual arrangement, I guessed, would invertly correspond to the rice plant as a medium which transfers paddy from the ancestors to their living progeny. Again, the bamboo branches may have been some sort of beacon. There is a vague possibility that they led the yang essence of the ancestors to the graves containing their bones. A very bold guess is that on the occasion of Qingming the yin aspect of the dead, his gui essence (transformed from his po soul) is reunited with the shen, the yang essence of the dead, transformed from his hun soul. Such a union may have promoted rice and fertility. But we must not be carried too far in our speculations. Here remains a number of interesting possibilities for future research.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "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.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208370, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "78\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nAt this stage I am not prepared to give a full interpretation of this Liang dynasty rustic calendar. But one thing is quite striking: Qingming is not mentioned, nor is grave worship. Instead we find a ritual period starting at the Equinox, concerned with sowing and marked by the absence of fire in the fields. Then the focus is on the Earth God who receives offerings. People move out of their houses and provide offerings for the ancestors - but how is unclear. At Cold Food the emphasis is shifted to the domestic sphere and to consumption. No fire was lit and cold food was eaten for three days. On the third day of the third moon, finally, people went to the river banks and set afloat small bowls. This may have been some sort of departure ceremony for the ancestors who had received offerings earlier on Earth God Day.\n\nIf grave worship was introduced in the area at a somewhat later stage, there was some option as to when the graves should be visited. If we assume that the sweeping and eating on the graves were linked to Qingming, then Cold Food, which falls on the same day, would be of importance; and, indeed, the latter name is frequently mentioned in the sources. But, on the other hand, the customs of Earth God Day were much more in consonance with the idea of grave visits, and in many places it seems as if the concern with the bones of the dead merged with that day of open air celebrations in the second moon. Thus some of the variation may be due to local adaptation to a superimposed standard Chinese system. Then we can accommodate for some variation within a system which has ritualized the sowing of rice and incorporated grave worship as part of this. But some further factors may have been of additional importance. In the first place I am thinking of the introduction of double cropping. This was not common, and it was late. In the seventeenth century only one crop of rice was grown, but in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries great efforts were made by officials to promote the planting of second crops. This meant two sowings, two transplantations, and two harvests in those places which had opted for agricultural innovation. But such new technical arrangements disarranged the traditional semantics of the rice cycle.\n\nAs was mentioned earlier in this essay, Baling is the only place from which we have found mention of the adoption of some sort of system with two crops. There sowing took place in the second moon, transplanting in the third, another sowing in the third moon,", "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": 208415, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\nIV\n\n123\n\nThe most important of these cultural agents responsible for the customary authority both of the Chia-chang and of the village elder is the filial piety-ancestor worship complex. The two are closely interwoven now, and have been for many centuries. Ancestor worship seems to have been the contribution of the earliest Bronze Age peoples,1 and the concept of filial piety to have originated from it. In the new religion developed by the Confucianists, ancestral worship became really secondary to filial piety, though a corollary of it.2 As a moral force it is very strong, having behind it for sanction the dead weight of thousands of years of social approval in literature and legend, in history and in law.3\n\nHsiao (#), imperfectly translated as Filial Piety, is the basic moral and ethical code of the Chinese. It emphasizes primarily the proper relationship between children and parents; but it extends to regulate the behavior between members of the whole family and clan, and even to certain relationships between individuals in the world at large. Proper behavior in all such situations is highly stereotyped and highly formalized: there is a proper way to act towards each of one's relatives with reference to his age, his rank and the degree of consanguinity.\n\nAlthough the behavior between members of a kin group is, theoretically at least, very formalized, there are two other facts which need to be emphasized in this connection. In the first place, this formalism, which is a part of the ethics of filial piety, is not a matter of external etiquette alone. On the contrary, these attitudes are, psychologically speaking, at the very core of an individual's character. They are his most fundamental reflexes, and are the very framework of his social consciousness. Secondly, as a result of this thorough conditioning, the individual has a constant feeling of reverence for age in general. He learns to respect the opinions of those older than himself, and to conform to their judgment and arbitration. In village government the remarkable authority of the\n\n1 Bishop, C. W.; \"Prefatory Note on the Worship of Earth in Ancient China.\" p. 4.\n\n2 Hu, Shih; \"Religion and Philosophy in Chinese History\", p. 33.\n\n3 The concept of filial piety has, for example, literally permeated the criminal code of the nation. See: Alabaster, G.; op. cit., passim, especially section on relationship, p. 143-216.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208457, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n165\n\nany contingency of administration which faced the small and self-contained villages of the rural districts in which the great mass of the Chinese people dwelt.\n\nAuthor's note: On rereading this effort of an aspiring young Sinologue in Peking some 45 years ago, the author realizes how quaint it must seem today for the \"state of the art\" is far advanced since then, with a proliferation of on-the-ground studies of Chinese rural life done by sociologists and social anthropologists in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. They provide concrete information on village governance richer than all one could find in 1933, C.M.W., 15 October 1979.\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nI. WORKS CITED IN THIS PAPER.\n\nAddison, James T.; Chinese Ancestor Worship: a Study of its Meaning and its Relations with Christianity. No place, Chung Hua Shen Kung Hui, 1925.\n\nAlabaster, Ernest; Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law and Cognate Topics, London, Luzac, 1899,\n\nBazin; \"Recherches sur les Institutions Administratives et Municipales de la Chine\" (Journal Asiatique. 5th Series, vol. 3, 1854, p. 6-66; vol. 4, 1854, p. 249-348), (The two papers are differentiated by the Roman numerals I and II.)\n\nBishop, Carl W. Man from the Farthest Past. New York Smithsonian Institution, 1930. (Smithsonian Scientific Series, vol. 7.)\n\nBishop, C. W.; \"Prefatory Note on the Worship of Earth in Ancient China.\" (Excavation of a West Han Site. Shanghai, no pub., 1932, p. 1-20.)\n\nBishop, Carl W.; \"The Rise of Civilization in China with Reference to its Geographical Aspects\" (Geographical Review, Oct. 1932, p. 617-631.)\n\nBoulais, Guy; Manuel du Code Chinois. Shanghai, Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, 1924. (Variétés Sinologiques 55.)\n\nBuck, John L.; Chinese Farm Economy; a Study of 2866 Farms in Seventeen Localities and Seven Provinces in China. Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1930.\n\nChen Huan-chang; The Economic Principles of Confucius and His School, 2 vols. New York, Columbia, 1911.\n\nChina National Government. The Civil Code of the Republic of China. Translated into English by Hsia, Ching-lin: Chow, James L. E.; Chang, Yukon, 2 vols. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1930-31. vol. 2.\n\nChina Year Book 1932. (Woodhead, H. G. W. Ed.) Shanghai, North-China, 1932.\n\nChinese Repository. See: \"Clanship Among the Chinese.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208488, "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "196\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nundying admiration of all around for his filial piety. In one version Guo was told by the feng shui expert to mix his father's ashes into a mulch and pour it into a crack which would appear in the dry earth in the plot. If the rich man should ask him what he was doing, he had to be told that Guo was taking washing water to the feng shui specialist. Exactly as foretold, a crack in the ground appeared and straightaway Guo poured the mulch into it.\n\nThe feng shui specialist, after warning Guo that his life would be comparatively short, then instructed Guo and his mother to keep walking out of the district until they saw a man with a brass head, a cow standing on a man and a fish living on top of a tree. At that spot he would eventually die, said the feng shui expert. As they walked, a rainstorm flooded their path and they were confronted by a priest with a bronze incense burner on his head to protect him from the rain, a cowherd crouching under one of his cows for the same reason and a fisherman who in his excitement had landed a fish over his head whereupon it was caught, alive still, in a tree. Guo realized that this was the place where he would die and where he must build his temple as advised by the feng shui specialist.\n\nGuo and his mother built a home. She worked for a family nearby whilst Guo went daily to collect firewood. In one version it was claimed that as he was still but a boy, amongst the games he played with the other boys was one in which one of their number acted as Emperor and ordered the others about. They took turns daily to be Emperor, and the Emperor of the day stood or sat on a stump and ordered the others to collect his firewood. On one occasion whilst Guo was \"Emperor\" he felt himself stiffen and realized he was about to be taken off to Heaven. The boy playing before him at that moment fell over in a trance and Guo called out for the others to fetch his mother quickly. Tardily she appeared, not having realized what was happening and having finished watering the cows. By the time she arrived Guo too had fallen into a trance but was still seated cross-legged on the tree stump. His bewildered and excited mother pulled down his left leg to wake him up but she was just too late, his spirit was leaving his body. Her last words to him were, \"If you really are a saint then you must look far away as saints are always ignored by their own people\". Thus it is that he is always depicted with his left", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208512, "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": 236, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "Plate 8. Possibly an image of a local earth god.\n\nPlate 9. Unidentified image, in monk's dress.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208667, "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-1979", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n97\n\nOld road boundary stones are being made into headstones, and as for coffins, we have only one and that is used for every funeral, the body being sewn up in a burlap sack and buried thus after the mourners leave. Rumors of more extensive repatriation persist, and according to the Bamboo Wireless now, we are going back to the States by June first. However, according to the super pessimists in Camp, of which there is no dearth, there is to be no repatriation at all; it is only a hoax. Incidentally, also we have in our ranks, some very able statesmen and generals who, if the devil were given his due, could settle all the world's problems. Father Bauer improved under his new treatment and diet. Evidently Dr. Kirk has found the root of the trouble.\n\nEXTRA: Our flour ration has been stepped up to 8 ounces per person per day, and today, we get one bun and a piece of bread for tiffin. Our garden and other tools have been returned but they must be kept locked up at night in the community storeroom lest we dig our way to safety.\n\n23—Funeral Mass at 8:30 for Mr. Simmons. Burial service at 6 p.m. in the cemetery, conducted by the Rev. Mr. Martin, former Head Master of St. Stephen's College. This was occasioned by the finding of some human bones around St. Stephen's which may be those of soldiers, British or Canadian, who fell during the fighting at Stanley. Included among the names of those on the small box containing the bones were those of Dr. Black, Capt. Whitney and the three English nurses (one a Catholic lady) who were killed in St. Stephen's College Hospital on Christmas Day.\n\nIn the early days of the Camp, a number of unburied bodies of soldiers were found at various spots, and when possible, buried by the internees, and as we take our evening stroll, we often pass and repass these graves of unknown soldiers. A few, however, have been marked and a small wooden cross erected, and in some instances, friends of the dead soldier have fixed up the grave quite attractively with stones. In the cemetery, too, a few very industrious and charitable men are working, making paths and in many ways trying to beautify the grounds with the limited material at hand.\n\n24----His Excellency, Bishop O'Gara, preached a eulogy this morning at a Requiem Mass, said by Father Hessler, for those whose remains were buried last evening. Another death among the British, of cancer. Quite a good-sized piece of bread today.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208729, "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-1979", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n159\n\ngroup or individual, enshrining distinctly Taoist deities for worship and aiming at promoting the cultivation and practice of a Taoist way of life. Such temples are perhaps rarely found in Taiwan, but if any of the criteria is not realized, the designation of such a temple as Taoist is incorrect and confusing. Therefore the great majority of temples in Taiwan do not fall under any of the above three categories and are to be considered as temples of the popular religion (group 4). Here again several sub-categories can be distinguished.\n\nFourth, the temples of the popular religion consist of several types. The most important and visible type is the formal community temple, established and controlled by the community or its representatives. Since the deities of some temples have proven special efficacy, they will attract worshippers from across the geographic boundaries of their own communities: one could consider them as temples of regional or even provincial (in China: national) communities. On the other hand, within a particular community (of a town or city) one frequently sees smaller social groups like hamlets or even neighborhoods with enough cohesion and economic power to build their own neighbourhood shrines or temples: one may call them neighbourhood temples: they are similar to the large community temples in origin and administration and are essentially public temples, although very often small and humble structures. In this group fall the majority of Earth-god shrines, and similar shrines built to house the bones of orphan spirits, or built to house the spirits of strange phenomena, like stones and rocks. Not all of them are public or community shrines: in many cases they are erected by individuals or individual families, which makes them private rather than community temples. Here the distinction is not always clear.\n\nThe second type of temples that I consider as belonging to the popular religion are the ancestral halls, built and controlled by clans. They are private or semi-private according to each case. They even in rare cases develop into community temples.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208732, "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-1979", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "162\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nare, of course, an enormous number of deities mentioned and described in Taoist ritual texts, of whom the common people do not even know the names. They belong to the esoteric tradition of Taoism and are only known to Taoist priests. But besides those, the majority of deities worshipped in the temples belong to the popular religion, although many border cases may exist of mutual absorption between the three traditional religions and the popular religion. Some of the most ‘popular' deities of Taiwan religion belong to the popular or community religion: examples are Matsu, Kuanti, the earth god(s), the Wang-Yeh gods, the city god(s), Prince Nat'o or T'ai-tzu, Pao-sheng ta-ti and even the so-called supreme god of Taoism, Yü-huang Ta-ti. A number of originally Taoist or Buddhist deities have been absorbed into the folk religion and have become part of it: Kuan-yin and Ti-tsang wang for the Buddhist side; the kitchen god, Yü-huang (Jade Emperor), the 8 Immortals for the Taoist side.\n\nAccording to the third criterium mentioned above, ownership of a temple, several categories exist greatly coinciding with the division based on the other two criteria. Temples may be government-owned (Confucian temples); owned by the local community on the neighborhood or town levels (these are the community temples); or privately owned, either by individuals, families, sectarian groups or monastic institutions.\n\nFinal sub-section of Chapter Three. After this long digression, I had better return to my book review. In this last part of Chapter Three the author discusses the 'genesis of temples'. Although strictly speaking there is a difference between temple and cult, between temple and deity worshipped in it, still the two should be discussed together. In fact there is a special chapter on the Genesis of Gods. However, since the author prefers to discuss the genesis of temples separately, we had better follow him. He distinguishes several ways of temple development:\n\n(A) by process of fen-shen or \"splitting bodies\" (p. 125). The reason of the spread and construction of new temples is the god's efficacy.\n\n(ii) by process of proselytization or a conscious effort on the part of the believers to spread the cult. This applies to Buddhist temples (and Christian churches).\n\n(iii) by transformation of a private home or temple into a community temple.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208740, "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-1979", "page_number": 197, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "170\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nto the hungry gods\" (p. 235). This statement is contradicted by the custom of ending great festivals with a huge banquet offered to the ghosts: at the end of a chiao festival there always is this p’u-tu ritual. I have seen it performed as well at the conclusion of a temple consecration, of an installation of new deity statues, etc. I feel that the author over-states his case in order to strengthen his thesis.\n\nIn Chapter VI: \"The Genesis of Gods” (pp. 238-269), the author formulates a new theory of how the gods, or cult-symbols, are created by the community. Since the gods, per definition, are symbols of community cohesion, they must appeal to the community as a whole. Ancestors are naturally excluded as candidates, and so the author decides that \"gods evolved from hungry ghosts\" (p. 239). Such a theory comes as a shock: it goes against the grain of most religious traditions, in which candidates for sainthood and deification are chosen from among the highest models of virtue, reflecting ideals of human perfection to be imitated by all men. Here, however, gods are born on the \"garbage piles” of society; they are among the outcasts who have no known family, no known descendants. That this theory is at first alarming does not necessarily undermine its validity. However, before it can be accepted, we must carefully scrutinize it.\n\nFirst of all, it is clear that the author only talks about the deities of the community religion. A great number of \"supernatural” beings are therefore not included: for example: the higher gods of Taoism, the Buddhist Holy Ones; their genesis is quite different. Also excluded are the gods of the \"state religion\" of ancient times, still worshipped nowadays: Heaven, Earth, the nature gods like the spirits of thunder, of rain, of mountains and rivers, etc. These are rather personifications of natural phenomena. The author also excludes the Taoist immortals, although in legend and literature they are often close to the people. It seems therefore that only one group remains to develop into cult symbols, the hungry ghosts. The fact of their evil origins is later on camouflaged.\n\nA priori I do not see any serious reason to reject this theory even if it appears to be shocking. However, I want to see solid arguments brought forward. And I find that the author does not provide them, except for one case (see later). When the author takes up the Matsu cult as an example he undermines his own thesis when he says that it is possible that her cult \"began as the cult...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208757, "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-1979", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN \n\n187 \n\nThis may at first appear as a tautology: all religions are naturally human. However, in contrast again with the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, in which God is seen as the Absolutely Holy and Transcendent One, the Chinese worshippers in the folk-religion conceive of their deities and relate to them in very human or humanistic terms. This can be explained in many different ways. One aspect is the magico-religious treatment of the gods, just mentioned, but there are several other angles to look at this complex phenomenon. The Chinese deities are often man-made: created by the people, and sometimes in the past appointed by the imperial government. Many gods and goddesses are actually apotheosized historical figures of special reputation or virtue who after their death proved to possess spiritual powers to assist the suffering people. There exists even the conception that the whole Chinese pantheon (not including the Buddhas-bodhisattvas) is modelled after the imperial government: they present a mirror-image of this world with the emperor — the Jade Emperor at the top. Underneath him are the various boards or ministries, the provincial governors, district and city officials down to the lowest rank of neighborhood inspectors. The humble Tu-ti-kung or Earth-spirits are thus the lowliest rank in the divine hierarchy. Gods and goddesses can be promoted or fired just like humans; in cases of mismanagement or misconduct they are sent into exile or otherwise punished. Man's imagination sees this whole spiritual world as operating by virtue of rules and relationships characteristic of his own this-worldly society. Perhaps the most striking manner to illustrate the humanity of the Chinese religion is that it is so evidently utilitarian. The gods and goddesses are worshipped by the people mainly and perhaps exclusively to obtain divine assistance in various difficult or important circumstances. These may be of individual significance or may relate to social concerns: family and community. But most often the blessings requested belong to the sphere of this life: health and wealth, fertility and progeny, position, success in business, cures of diseases (often in the past: epidemics) and overall protection against evil forces, evil spirits who threaten to destroy human happiness. Concern with the after-life may also be a motivation of religion, but then life after death is seen as a continuation of life on earth. The deceased are imagined to have the same needs as in this world: food, shelter and clothing are their most important concerns. Therefore, the ancestor cult is utilitarianistic in two ways: if it is not intend-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208758, "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-1979", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "188\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\ned for the happy state of the dead themselves, its objective is to obtain various worldly benefits through the ancestor's intervention.\n\nIt seems, in other words, that the Chinese people are not concerned about religious attitudes, so much stressed in religions like Christianity: adoration, praise and reverence or submission to the will of a Holy and transcendent God. Thanksgiving and repentance are present, but are equally utilitarian: the gods are thanked for benefits granted, and man apologizes for offenses that disturb the deities and may endanger the bestowing of future blessings.\n\nAll this is perhaps an injustice done to the Chinese worshippers, or a wrong interpretation of actually observed religious behaviour. But a Western observer is easily led to make the conclusion that Chinese religion on the popular level is utilitarian and mundane. The attitude of worshippers in the temple offers the clearest illustration: paipai (worship) is very casual, almost purely ritualistic and mechanical: as long as the prescribed ritual action is performed, everything is all right. The temple gods are there to listen to the people's complaints or wishes and \"if the price is right\", the prayers will be heard. If the god is efficacious, people will flock to his temple, otherwise he may be gradually forgotten and ‘discontinued'. This attitude of the temple-goers may be the reason why Western and Chinese authors have claimed that the Chinese people are not religious: they are not religious in the same way as, for instance, Christians. Their religion is of a different type: earth-bound, humanistic. Therefore, once again, Western-based definitions and concepts should be re-examined before they are applied to other cultures, especially when value judgments are appended to them. Who will decide that Chinese religion is inferior to Christianity just because it is less transcendent? The function of religion is to fulfill particular human needs and if Chinese religion fulfills those needs, it has achieved its purpose and is a valid alternative type of religious behaviour.\n\nA third aspect of modern Chinese religion as observed in Taiwan is its mediumistic, almost ecstatic nature. This does not mean that one finds medium-cults in all the temples; on the contrary, the larger temples usually do not play host to mediumistic performances. But there is an increasing number of smaller temples or even home-shrines where either 'divining youths' attract worshippers or where an organized divinatory writing cult exists.19 The two are quite", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208770, "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-1979", "page_number": 227, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "200 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\ncap, the songkok. His inclusion is quite logical when you consider that the Chinese know that every location has its resident Ti Chu Kung (土地公), the tutelary spirit of the building and its surrounding land. The immigrant Chinese appear to have accepted that the local Ti Chu Kung in a Malay area must be a Malay, and burnt incense and laid offerings before him, and prospered. His image is seen in many rural areas of Malaysia, in the niche within the entrance to local temples or under the main altar, where in Chinese temples in other areas the tablet dedicated to the Chinese Ti Chu Kung usually would be found. \n\nThe usual title of the Malay, Ti Chu Kung, is Na To Kung (拿督公), or Na-tuk, the Cantonese form of the Malay honorific title of Dato. In Fukienese and Ch'aochou communities in Malaysia he is also referred to by the same title, Na T'o, but using the characters 哪卓 and 藍卓. \n\nIn many parts of Malaysia nowadays Na T'o Kung's image, or a rock dedicated to him, stands beside or near an image of the Chinese Earth God. This is not unexpected as in temples elsewhere, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, the image of or the tablet dedicated to the Earth God would be beside or certainly separate from the tablet dedicated to the Ti Chu Kung. \n\nOccasionally, Na T'o Kung has a shrine to himself. A very rough but adequate shrine, for example, stands at the edge of a rubber estate near Labis in Johore, Malaysia. There is no image, no keeper nor nearby resident, only a tablet, and an urn filled with the stub ends of consumed incense sticks. \n\nA sketch by a Fukienese god carver in Singapore (plate 1) depicts Na T'o as a seated elderly man dressed in the cap, jacket and robes of the Malay, holding a walking stick in his right hand and a pipe in his left. He has a dark skinned face with a short moustache and is described as the \"Malay Landowner Gentleman”. Some places have him swathed in white “arab” robes, and some images of him depict him clutching a book or writing materials in his left hand instead of a pipe. \n\nThere are several local versions of his origins. One of the more widespread is that he is the spirit of a popular, long dead Malay foreman on a rubber estate, a Haji named Osman. Another claims that he is the spirit of a long dead Arab, the forebear of a major Malay family.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208783, "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-1979", "page_number": 240, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n213\n\nThe Villa was opened in 1936. Regrettably, the hope and promise of the occasion was within little more than a decade dashed by disease, war, and the change of government in mainland China. In the first two years, many of the inmates died, probably from malaria, though the reason given by elderly persons was that the local earth and water were unfavourable. Their death certificates, signed by the Inspector from Tsuen Wan Police Station, are still retained in the Villa. The Japanese occupation of South China and then Hong Kong followed soon after and had a disrupting effect upon member patrons in Kwangtung and their financial condition, and upon the Society and its activities. It also curtailed recruitment of inmates.\n\nThe Villa had not recovered from the effects of the war when the influx of refugees from China in the late 40s further worsened its situation. The Villa was quickly overrun with squatters who now occupy most of the building. Only the main hall, which is kept locked, and some rooms at the rear portion of the Villa, which are lived in by no more than 10 elderly ladies, are free from families who have no connection with the latter or the Society to which they belong. The Villa and its property became the subject of dispute. It was sold some years ago to a development company after Court action, but objections to the sale have come in. A number of elderly persons in Hong Kong who are active in the \"Three Religions\" could still maintain an interest, but from the sidelines.*\n\nTsuen Wan, December, 1978.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nLOCAL REACTIONS TO THE DISTURBANCE OF 'FUNG SHUI' ON TSING YI ISLAND, HONG KONG, SEPTEMBER 1977-MARCH 1978.\n\nI recount below, with photographs, the reactions of a long-settled community of Hakka villagers to the disturbance of fung shui in the course of engineering site investigation works on Tsing Yi island, Hong Kong. Two main events occurred: firstly, interference with a fung shui hill by a bulldozer crew; secondly, the death/illness of villagers at a later stage.\n\n* The villa was resumed and cleared in 1979 for the redevelopment of North Tsuen Wan. It was not possible for it to remain owing to the extensive site formation required in its vicinity.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208784, "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-1979", "page_number": 241, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "214\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe location of the first major incident was the wooded slope of a steep hillside covered with pine trees and shrubs which was held under forestry licence by the Tsing Yi Rural Committee on behalf of the island community. The occasion for it was the entry of a bulldozer in connection with site investigation surveys (by boring rigs) to this area, where engineering works were held up pending negotiations with the villagers for the removal of several villages.\n\nIn the event, an unauthorized entry was made without the knowledge of the supervising engineer or District Office land staff. The bulldozer made tracks some 300 yards long in several zig-zags across the front of the hill, to the imagined and claimed detriment of three old villages whose fung shui area it has long been. The bulldozer's tracks were approximately 8 feet wide and it had effectively knocked over trees, taken up shrubs and exposed red earth, as clearly shown in Plate 4.\n\nThe villagers were prompt in their response; not only to complain to the District Office, but also to take early action to reduce the harm thought to emanate from the uncovered earth scars across the hill face. They sent parties of people to the spot who quickly cut adjoining grass, shrubs and the lower branches of trees to cover up the red earth. This took place over much of the tracks (Plate 4). They also hired a geomancer from Kowloon who set up a shrine beside a major clan grave whose side had been closely skirted by the bulldozer (Plate 5). He also provided charms which were set beside the shrine, to avert any bad influences coming from the uncovered earth nearby (Plate 6). In their turn the villagers sent a man at early morning and dusk to light joss-sticks and candles, change the oil in the little lamps on the shrine, so as to try to ensure that harm was averted by showing devotion to the earth god and to the ancestors. This service was provided in turn by a certain class of men styled fuk chù (±) from each of the villages affected by the excavation. This term means elderly persons who are thought to have received blessings from the gods e.g. by having many sons and health in old age.\n\nThe District Office 'made amends' by paying for the expenses/labour costs of the remedial work, and for the cost of the ceremonial rites styled tun fu (#). The effect of the remedial work thus undertaken was estimated to last for 6 months, after which the process would be repeated.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208846, "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": 8, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "207\n\n36 1911 Census.\n\n37 For a brief discussion of these ideas, see David Faure, \"Hongkong and China in the village world\", JHKBRAS 21 (1981). A noteworthy variation is the shrine for the Taai Shing Yan Kung Ma at Luk Mei Village, which is both an ancestral figure and a territorial god. See research notes on Ue Lan Festival at Luk Mei, 5-7.8.81.\n\n* Ints. Mr. Cheung T'o 29.5.81, 15.6.81, Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Mr. Tse Ming 8.81, and notes on the ta tsiu at Ho Chung, 27.12.81 - 31.12.81. For the donations of the Uens towards the repair of the temple, see Ch'e Kung Temple tablet and ints. Mr. Uen Chi Ming 16.1.81, 13.2.81, 7.3.81. Our interviews did not discover if only villagers of Ho Chung contributed towards the annual Ch'e Kung Festival, or if other villagers in the villages that took part in the ta tsiu also did.\n\n3 Int. Mr. Chan P'aang Hing 29.5.81.\n\n40\n\nInts. Mr. Cheng Ip 14.5.81, Mr. Lei Yiu T'ing 23.6.81, Mr. Lei Kau 23.6.81, Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, 21.7.81.\n\n41\n\nInts. Mr. Tse Wing 9.6.81, Mr. Tsang 25.6.81, Mr. Tsang Yung 25.6.81, Mrs. Wai 27.6.81\n\n42 Ints. Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Mr. Cheung Wing 1981; see also Mr. Sung Kw'an 23.6.81 for similar arrangements for raising pigs in Tit Kim Hang, and Mr. Shing Uen Wan 10.7.81 in Pik Uk.\n\n43\n\nInts. Mr. Shing Ip On 14.6.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81. Every year, on the 28th of the First Month, all the five surnames of Mang Kung Uk joined in the worship of the earth god. A matshed was built in the village, on which lanterns were hung. See int. Mr. Ue Shun Hing 10.7.81. See also Patrick Hase, “Observations at a Village Funeral\", presented at the Conference on Hong Kong Society and History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, December 1981, (papers to be published shortly).\n\n44\n\n** Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.8.81.\n\n* Ints. Mr. Sung 22.6.81, Mr. Tang Kei Faat 25.6.81, Mr. Hoh King 24.6.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, Mrs. Lau Lei Loi T'aai 28.6.81, store keeper at Wong Chuk Wan 28.6.81, Mrs. Hoh née Lau 29.6.81, Mr. Kuet Po Shing 2.7.81, and notes on the ruined temple at Wong Chuk Wan 28.6.81. The composition of the Shap Heung given by Mrs. Hoh née Lau and Mr. Kuet differs slightly from that in the text here. Other village groups in the Sai Kung area include one that consists of Tse Keng Tuk, Chiu Hang, Ta Ho Tun, and Ma Nam Wat (int. Mr. Chan Uet Shing 24.6.81), another that consists of the three villages at Man Yee Wan (int. Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81), yet another the seven villages that made use of the sugar press at Ko Tong (int. Mr. To 19.6.81). Apparently, Tai Long, Pak Tam Au, and Chek Keng, and then Sham Chung, Lai Chi Chong, and Pak Sha O were two groups of villages that had close social ties (int. Madam Chiu I Mooi 7.5.81).\n\n48 Ints. Mr. Tse Wing 20.6.81, Mr. Yau 28.7.81. Fung shui was involved in the dispute in Sha Kok Mei. The villagers considered that part of a hill nearby, known to them as the \"tiger's land\" (foo tei) was essential to the fung shui of the village. Sha Kok Mei would not permit burial, grass or tree cutting on the foo tei.\n\n\"Mr. Chau T'in Shang 9.7.81, Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, Mr. Yau Taai Hin 8.81, Mr. Tse Ming 8.81. Major temple celebrations before World War II were held in at least the following places: Leung Shuen Wan, Sai Kung, Tai Miu, Hang Hau, Pan Long Wan, Tseung Kwan O, Kau Sai. Pak Kong and Ho Chung had a ta tsiu every ten years, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "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": 208876, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "10\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nInside the library large cases of books cover the walls and some books, used more frequently, are individually wrapped in cloth and lie on tables and altars. The larger monasteries have rooms for the aged, and most have halls where ashes of devotees may be deposited.\n\nIn general, a visit to a Buddhist monastery would take you first past the shrine of the folk religion tutelary deity of the neighbourhood, the Earth God (1✯✯). (Illustration 3) Once through the gates and the entrance hall with its six \"guardians” (Mi Luo Fu, Wei Tuo and the Four Heavenly Kings) the layout follows a fairly standard pattern. The main altar will be straight ahead in the Great Hall which houses the main Buddhas. The main altar may be occupied by a single image, a group of three, or an array of a dozen or so. On and along the secondary altars, altars down the side walls and side halls there are images of other lesser deities. These, in twelve monasteries and temples in Hong Kong and Macau, include the well-known groups of eighteen or five hundred Luohan. Frequently, immediately behind the main altar and back to back with the main deity, stands the most popular and honoured of the Bodhisattvas, Guan Yin, with her two assistants.\n\nMahayana Buddhist temples contain a large number of images of Buddhas and major Bodhisattvas, some of which are considered to be more important than the image of Sakyamuni Buddha himself, unlike the Theravada Buddhist temples of Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and Srilanka in which Sakyamuni is the most important.\n\nThere appears to be only one temple in Hong Kong in which Lamaist images are worshipped, although there is one other, above Tsuen Wan, where in a private room, some forty or so Lamaist bronze images are on display.* The temple in which the Lamaist images appear on its altars is a shoddy, fairly modern concrete and corrugated iron construction above a new estate in North Point, where an elderly and now deceased Cantonese gentleman settled after spending some years in Tibet. Most devotees appear to have little idea of the style or origins of imagery, and the rituals and ceremonies performed in the temple by the widow of the founder are identical with those in other temples in Hong Kong.\n\n* Guan Yin temple in Fu Yung Shan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208881, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n15\n\nIn single-room and larger temples the major altar, which faces the entrance, may be either one large space reaching from side wall to side wall or it can be divided into three, five or more individual altars with, on occasions, a separate altar or two constructed down the side walls. (Plate 6).\n\nIn quite a number of traditional temples the main hall is divided longitudinally by partition walls from floor to ceiling. These stretch a short distance into the main hall from the rear wall of the temple, one on either side of the main altar. The two side altars are therefore outside the partitions, and in practice these partition walls serve to isolate the side altars.\n\nIn many traditional temples several major deities, and even a few minor deities, have a side hall dedicated entirely to themselves and their attendants. These include the God of Loyalty and Literature Guan Di; the fertility goddess Jin Hua Niang Niang; the bodhisattva Guan Yin and the wealth god Cai Bo Xing Jun. It is not necessarily a down-grading of the importance of the deity but a late recognition and addition to the temples' complement. A great many side hall altars contain a group of unconnected and unidentifiable minor images around the major and identifiable deity's image, all placed there over the years by zealous devotees.\n\nA side hall in one temple contained the lone image of the Earth God on the only altar, although the characters above the altar read Jin Hua Niang Niang. Presumably over the years the images of this fertility Goddess and her attendants had been removed and replaced by the image of the Earth God without the title above the altar being changed.\n\nThe temple incinerator, and the temple keeper's kiosk or counter from which he sells charm papers and incense, are usually in one or other of the side halls or courts between side halls.\n\nSide halls also contain large ritual items such as the temple bell, drum and the removable head and tail from the village dragon boat, and in one of the side halls of most Boat People's temples replicas of early junks (some 8' to 10' in length) also gather dust in the gloom. These model junks are used only on festival days when offerings are placed on the decks. The devotees thank Tian Hou for good catches over the previous year and request similar benefits for the coming year.\n\nThe roofs of traditional temples consist of interlocking tiles resting on lathes supported by strong cross beams. The latter are", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208882, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "16\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\noften picked out in green or left in their natural state, though very quickly they are covered with incense soot.\n\nTraditional temples in Hong Kong and Macau have two predominant styles of facade. The first has a verandah, which stretches from side to side across the front and is covered by the roof (Illustration 7). The second style, the more common, consists of a regular oblong plan with the entrance door and the section of the front facade which fronts the main hall, set back about two feet into the whole facade. The facade fronting the two side halls is usually windowless, though occasionally it is decorated with long murals at roof height (Illustration 8).\n\nThe verandah of the first style is occasionally enclosed in a low, open balustrade. Above it the roof is supported by a stone beam from each side wall, reaching to and resting on the vertical columns which flank the entrance. Stone animals occasionally grace the beams, and more often than not the wooden support beams which stretch from the facade to the vertical pillars are heavily carved or support carvings depicting Chinese social life. In some villages, the Deng Family clan temple at Ha Tsun for example, the carvings depict everyday life, such as fishermen wading ashore from their grounded boats. In other temples, under the eaves high above the long verandah, murals of scenes in three dimensions in Shekwan pottery decorate the facade.\n\nThe majority of temples in Macau are single-hall temples (a total of 19 out of 32). The main halls of the two largest traditional temples in Macau, the Lin Feng Miao and the Guan Yin Miao are much the same basic size as those in the large Hong Kong traditional temples. However, the side halls and annexes of the two Macau temples are considerably larger. The large main hall of the Lin Feng Temple in Almirante Lacerda, facing WNW and backing onto the hill Colina de Mong Ha, has a main altar with two secondary altars on either side and, in addition, a second main altar in the front of the court, facing the main entrance. The whole Lin Feng complex has four separate major altars. There are two in the main hall, one at the front and one at the back and one each in the two side halls (with the one to the east having a further altar in a separate room). The temple's two side halls, each with its own main altar, are more than likely looked upon as separate temples as they have their own Earth Gods beside their entrances.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208883, "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n17\n\nThe even larger Guan Yin temple, facing south west on the reverse of the same hill, has a similar layout, though in this complex the side halls are separated from the main hall by unroofed passageways.\n\nA third large temple, but not of traditional architectural style, the Lin Dai Temple off the Estrada do Repouso, has two separate secondary halls to the west but only one to the east. Each of the two western secondary halls are sub-divided into two altar halls, one to the front and one to the rear, making a total of seven separate altar halls.\n\nThe nearest equivalent in Hong Kong to the two largest traditional temples in Macau, are the traditional temples in Hollywood Road in Central Victoria, Temple Street in Yaumati and Stone Nullah Lane in Wanchai. Nowadays the traditional temple in Yaumati (Illustration 9) is in practice four individual temples under the management of the Tung Wah Hospital Group. Originally it was a single temple consisting of a large main hall with two side halls on either side, each hall separated from the next by an uncovered passageway. For at least thirty years, however, the complex has consisted of the main major temple, with the two secondary halls to the north being divorced from it and becoming individual temples with their own keepers, controlling committees and cults. The two secondary halls to the south have again been divorced from the main hall. One is an individual temple with its own cult etc and the other is a clinic and dispensary. The main cults in the four temples from north to south are Guan Yin, the City God, Tian Hou and again Guan Yin, though in addition the major deities worshipped in the second and fourth temples are the Ten Judges of the Underworld and She Ji (**) the Spirit of the Harvest and Crops. The carved titles of the main deities over the four temples' entrances, are interesting. The first is Fu De (**), the Earth God (and not Guan Yin as one would expect), the second has the title of the City God Temple above its entrance, the third has Tian Hou and the fourth has She Tan (***) (again not Guan Yin as one would expect). The last entrance, the clinic, has the characters for the Library over it.20\n\nThe traditional temple in Stone Nullah Lane in Wanchai is comparatively larger than other similar temples in the colony and is made up of four individual halls. The main hall, roughly 40 feet wide by 55 feet long, has three side-altars on each side of the\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208884, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "18\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nmain altar, with a further three altars down the side walls. In the centre, a long altar divides the upper part of the hall from the lower. A side hall to the west, dedicated to one goddess, is also used as a workshop for the construction of paper items to be burnt in ceremonies for the dead. Behind this side hall is a courtyard beyond which is a separate hall containing three more altars. To the east of the main hall is a secondary hall, dedicated, not altogether surprisingly even in a traditional temple, to the Buddhist Trinity. This hall contains just the one large altar and behind it are the living quarters for the staff.\n\nSome traditional temples have had a secondary temple built alongside, as an annex or as a separate temple dedicated to a particular deity, and many traditional temples nowadays have had windows knocked into the outside walls, particularly into the rooms in which the keeper and his family reside.\n\nIn villages and hamlets there are two types of temple. The first is the small, often single-room popular folk religion temple or shrine, of the kind we have described above, in which one or two major deities are depicted on the main altar. The second, the clan ancestral hall or temple, may be a comparatively large complex of halls and rooms, the main hall of which contains, by seniority, serried rows of ancestral tablets of the most senior members of the family, the public ancestors of each generation back twenty or more generations.\n\nVillage temples, be they traditional folk religion or clan temples, are more than just religious establishments where prayers and offerings may be made. Side halls and rooms are used as the village storehouse for items like the old rice winnower, large tables and clan crockery*, as the village school, the games room and as the civic and medical centre. They also frequently are homes for one or two of the village needy.\n\nMost walled villages in the New Territories have a very small single-hall folk religion temple called a Shen Ting (神廳), dedicated to one of the national or local heroes (such as Guan Di or Hou Wang) situated in the north wall, facing south, and located at the opposite end of the main lane which bisects the village from the main gate. In most walled villages too, the Tu Di Gong (the Earth...\n\n*\n\nLineage or village properties that can be borrowed by families on festive occasions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208887, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n21\n\nbefore them in both rural and urban areas. In round terms, they are miniature unmanned temples or open air altars often called in Chinese \"small temples” (1). They fall into two categories. The first is the roofed, open-fronted, doorless structures which protect a public deity or deities. The second is an unroofed area surrounding a natural rock, tree, stone or marker which is considered a spirit and is offered incense and other minor offerings. (Illustration 13).\n\nThe first can be as large as a single room the size of a small garage (but with a low roof), as small as a dog kennel or even smaller, a miniature temple some 1'6” high, 1' wide and some 2” to 3\" deep. All shrines house a deity and an incense pot. A wooden plaque, a framed print or an uncut or undressed rock or stone may represent the deity. In the case of shrines dedicated to the Earth God, probably the undressed rock is the most common representation. Very occasionally the Earth God is joined by his consort, and quite frequently by one or two unidentified and usually unconnected images placed there by devotees.\n\nLarge street shrines (Illustrations 14 and 15) of a more temporary nature are now few and far between in Hong Kong21 and are referred to officially, as we have already seen, as “illegal temples\". They generally consist of a large altar with numerous often unconnected folk religion and Buddhist images and several dozen framed prints of various gods. The jumble is arranged in an open-fronted shed, or in an open-fronted lean-to in a side alley and is cared for by one or two very elderly, often infirm men or women. In Macau none have been found however, though there are some two to three dozen in Hong Kong.\n\nSmall shrines are to be seen at the side of streets, footpaths, at crossroads or outside temples and monasteries, inside temples and monasteries in ones or groups of two or more, in homes and also in shops and factories.\n\nHousehold or family shrines, very common in Hong Kong, particularly in peasant and urban working class homes, are probably not always quite what foreigners expect. They often consist of a tiny shelf or alcove, painted vermilion, bearing or containing an incense pot (often the ubiquitous red-painted cigarette tin), before a representation of one or two deities.\n\nThe more elaborate household shrines have miniature doors,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208888, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "22 \n\nKEITH G. STEVENS \n\ncolumns, boards, boards bearing auspicious phrases, balustrades, roofs and lattice windows exactly like full-size temples (Illustration 16). Several wooden miniature shrines seen on lower decks of large sea-going junks were heavily ornamented and the carving exquisitely detailed. At the other end of the scale, soap boxes, painted red and upended, serve as the simple shrine of the less affluent household. \n\nActual images of gods in homes are few, and their worship is very limited. Usually, there is just a framed print, and routine offerings consist of a daily incense stick burnt before the print with, in addition, a small offering of tea or rice on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month. The majority of Chinese who have a household shrine display on their main altar the bodhisattva Guan Yin, who is, without a doubt, the most popular deity of Chinese everywhere. Most homes also have a second “altar”, the Kitchen or Stove God, whose title on a red board is hung up, or when written on a red paper is pasted up near the family cooking range. \n\nShop or factory shrines usually stand or hang on walls at shoulder height, constructed of wood and painted vermilion. The majority of shop shrines contain plaques or prints of Guan Di as patron deity of merchants and Tu Di Gong, the Earth God. Those in fire stations and police stations bear prints of Guan Di in his role as the patron deity of loyalty. \n\nOn days marked Chu (除)22 in the Almanac (i), old lady devotees offer prayers in the street before unpainted wooden boxes used as shrines. They are propitiating the demons who cause disasters, and are also attempting to change their luck for the better. They use one of their shoes to strike the \"small men” (1-A) banging small figures of humans cut out of black paper and at the same time calling out in high-pitched voices for the demons to flee. The voice is pitched particularly high when calling back the roaming soul of a sick child (the absence of the soul being the cause of the sickness). \n\nApart from modern concrete decorative structures in places like the Tiger Balm Gardens and on the foreshore of Repulse Bay, there is only one pagoda in Hong Kong or Macau. This is at Ping Shan, in the New Territories, and was built of stone blocks some three hundred years ago. Like other Chinese pagodas, it has little use other than to enshrine some sacred object, in this case, several images", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208896, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "30\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nor halls.32 Nearly 70% of all nunneries are on Lantau island, whereas only 10% of the monasteries are; and three hundred and fifty-three temples and monasteries have resident staff.\n\nThere are thirty-two temples in Macau, of which two are well-nigh derelict. Of the thirty-two temples, six are coastal, twenty-four are urban, and two rural. The majority of temples contain a mixture of Buddhist and folk religion images (no temples contain only Buddhist images), and the remainder contain only folk religion deities.\n\nDegrees of popularity of the major deities in temples and shrines\n\nThe total number of temples dedicated to a specific deity throughout the two areas reflects the importance of that deity to devotees. In Hong Kong and Macau, forty-four different gods each have at least one temple dedicated to him (or her), whilst only seven gods have more than five temples to him (or her). The seven, in order of precedence (based simply on them being the main deity of a temple or monastery), are Tian Hou (seventy-eight) (*), Sakyamuni Buddha (thirty-nine), Guan Yin (thirty-eight), Guan Di (twenty-one), Hong Sheng (twenty), Bei Di, who is better known as the Northern Emperor, (ten), and Lu Zu or Lu Dongbin (seven). Although this gives only a very rough guide, the number of images of Guan Yin throughout Hong Kong and Macau vastly outnumbers those of Tian Hou. However, when the criterion is the number of temples in Hong Kong and Macau in which a particular deity is to be found (on any altar and not necessarily as the main deity), then the first five are Guan Yin, whose image appears in at least seventy-five temples, Tian Hou (114), Guan Di (88), Qi Tian Da Sheng (Monkey) (61), and Di Zang Wang (59).\n\nThe Kitchen God, most frequently depicted by a reddish-orange paper pasted on the chimney above the stove, is the most common deity to be seen on the household altar, followed closely by Guan Yin, whose image, as we have noted, is also to be seen in 70% of all temples. The most common deities outside the home are Tu Di Gong, the Earth God (the local tutelary deity), in both urban and\n\n* The totals are not the number of images seen but the number of temples in which the deity is the main image in both Hong Kong and Macau.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208897, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n31\n\nrural areas, and the very ancient agrarian cult, the God of the Harvest, Soil and Grain, She Ji(4) whose shrines are found usually at the edge of villages and, like those of the Earth God, are too numerous to count.\n\nThe only general conclusion to be drawn from all this suggests that the vitality of the cults of deities has in general declined, whereas a limited number, in squatter resettlement areas, continue to thrive by acting as a focus for the minority Chaozhou, Hakka and Minnan immigrants.\n\nNOTES AND REFERENCES\n\nThis is Hong Kong: Temples. By Joyce Savidge, Hong Kong Government Printer, 1977.\n\n2 Dong Fong Ri Bao.\n\n* In this article the English word \"temple\" is used to include uniquely Buddhist and uniquely Daoist temples and monasteries; popular or folk religion temples (which may or may not contain Buddhist and Daoist deities); community temples (both private and public), and ancestral or clan temples. A shrine is an open-fronted room or box-like construction, either at the wayside, under a tree, outside a temple or monastery or hanging on a wall. Outside permanent shrines are referred to in Hong Kong as \"Exposed temples\" (露天廟). They are by definition unmanned.\n\nA \"community temple\" is one built by funds raised within a limited community and administered by a committee, either of a city, village or suburb, or of an ethnic group of expatriates. Private temples are built by private bodies such as:\n\n(a) A family or clan.\n\n(b) An individual monk or nun who raises funds by subscription and who leaves the temple to an acolyte at his or her death.\n\n(c) A trade or profession.\n\nPrivate temples, despite being private and closed to outsiders, are also usually controlled by a committee. A few private temples continue to remain so but gradually most become public, particularly as the number of devotees and images of deities within the temple increase. Some Buddhist temples, privately owned with the affairs and finances in the hands of the owners, are usually also the home of the owners and the ancestral tablets of the owner's family appear on the altars with or beside the deities. Privately owned is not the same as being open or closed to the public. Some indeed may be closed, but the majority are open to the public.\n\nOnly very occasionally are icons or images of deities to be found in clan temples, whereas ancestral tablets are frequently to be seen in community temples. Advantage is taken in the latter of the duties performed by the temple keeper (which clan temples do not have) which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208903, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\nPLAN OF A TYPICAL MEDIUM-SIZED\n\nTRADITIONAL FOLK RELIGION TEMPLE-HONG KONG\n\n(with main hall and secondary halls)\n\nFig. 3\n\n1. Table for offerings\n\n2. Altar table\n\n3. Main altar in main hall\n\n4. Secondary altars in main hall\n\n5. Main altar in secondary hall 6. Spirit doors\n\n7. Shrine\n\n8. Shrine\n\nDoorway Official (11)\n\nThe Earth God\n\n(土地公)\n\n9. Main doors with guardians\n\npainted on them\n\n10. The tutelary deity of the building a tablet under the main altar\n\n11. Side altar\n\nA. Under altar (T) (beneath a\n\nsecondary altar)\n\nB. Side room (44) (storage areas) C. Side room (temple keeper's\n\naccommodation)\n\nD. Entrance hall (\")\n\nE. Forecourt (*)\n\nF. Passageway ()\n\nG. Courtyard (unroofed) (#)\n\nH. The main hall (EA) otherwise known as the Zheng Dian (EM) or Gong (palace) (g)\n\nK. Secondary hall\n\nL.\n\nX\n\nIncinerator\n\nLife size images of aides to the main deity\n\n33d", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208951, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI, AN INTRINSIC WAY TO ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN WITH ILLUSTRATION OF KAT HING WAI\n\nIN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG\n\nDAVID LUNG*\n\nIn modern society where our environment is largely dictated by economy and technology, much of the deep meaning in places and placemaking has been lost. Scientists, psychologists, sociologists and environmentalists have repeatedly warned us of the danger of alienation from nature, from other men, and more drastically, from our inner self. What Alvin Toffler wrote in Future Shock, published in 1970 is no longer shocking to us; instead, the symptoms have become real societal sickness. Rapid industrial developments and acceleration of social changes have created what Toffler calls a ‘new throw-away culture': our relationship with things is more temporary; with human beings, more transient; with our environment, ‘nomadic.’ Too much is happening too fast. In expressing his strong anguish that human value is being eliminated by technology, Rene Dubos, a distinguished microbiologist, pathologist and Pulitzer Prize winner, protests by saying that \"[s]cientific technology is presently taking modern civilisation on a course that will be suicidal if it is not reversed in time.\" He finds no excuses in affluent societies where, although resources are ample, human values are still neglected by establishments concerned with self-interests only. \"[The institutions base their] choices and decisions on technological means rather than on human ends; [their] criteria are power, efficiency of production, and quantity of consumption, rather than the quality of human life.\" \"Yet... productivity and efficiency have no value in themselves; they have merit only as means to ends.” Therefore, in viewing modern architecture, he deplores that \"apartment and office buildings [in particular] have nothing to communicate beyond efficiency and conspicuous wealth, hence their architectural triviality.\" Indeed our buildings today are so utilitarian that human\n\n* Mr. Lung is a practising architect in Hong Kong. This article is excerpted from his M.Arch. thesis Heaven, Earth and Man: Concepts and Processes of Chinese Architecture and City Planning. Oregon: Centre for Environmental Research, 1978.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208953, "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": 115, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI; ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T.\n\nKai Hing Wat. the walled Hamlet of Good Fortune\n\n83\n\nKat Hing Wai, Walled Hamlet of Good Fortune, is the residence of an extended family of the Tang lineage. All the people who live here are closely related in Chinese kinship terms. It is situated in the middle of the Kam Tin Valley separated from most of the Tang hamlets by a modern highway. The dwelling units built by the clansmen during 1465–1487 are flanked by a fortified wall and moat of later construction, 1662-1721. The walls, measuring 275 feet by 290 feet, form roughly a square plan with gun towers about 25 ft at the four corners. Along the 18-ft high walls there are gun slots near the parapets. The moat of about 20 ft width is crossed by a stone bridge at the entrance, fenced by a pair of wrought iron gates. The entire hamlet with its main entrance and the entrances of the houses orient toward the west instead of the usual southerly orientation.\n\nThe layout of the hamlet is highly formalised and symmetrical. The main street, 10 ft wide, running from the entrance gate to the shrine at the opposite end, forms the central axis. On both sides of the main street are row houses with 10 units per row, six rows on each side, and three foot lanes separating the rows. All public facilities such as storerooms, washing facilities and animal shed are located on the periphery walls enclosing the compound. Guarding the main entrance is the shrine of the Earth God. There is no commercial establishment within the hamlet. It is a kind of communal dwelling similar to others in Kwangtung and Fukien. Shared facilities such as the market square, schools and ancestral temples are not found within the hamlet, but are located in proper places where governed by fung-shui principles, as indicated on the map.\n\nAccording to the villagers, there were as many as 600 members living here at one time; the present population is about two hundred.\n\nAll individual dwellings are identical in size and layout, with the exception of those in the first and last row where the front room is missing. It is basically a three-part house with a front room 10 ft wide by 12 ft deep, a t'ien-ching (courtyard) of 10 by 8 in the middle and a back room equal to the size of the front room. A\n\nKat Hing Wai Kam Tin 錦田\n\nfung-shui * t'ien-ching #", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208954, "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "84\n\nDAVID LUNG\n\ncockloft reached by a ladder may be added to provide for additional storage or sleeping space. The front and back rooms are gable roofed, while a portion of the courtyard may be covered to provide shelter for cooking. The walls are load-bearing structures, 12-in cavity walls, made out of greyish bricks of Kwangtung size (11″X 5\" x 3\"), manufactured in regions along Sikiang, West River. Some houses have three to five courses of granite stone on the facade running up from the foundation. Clay roof tiles laid in single layers are supported by rafters spaced roughly 8 in apart. The rafters are in turn placed on beams of fir or pine roughly 6 in in diameter supported by end walls. Window openings are rare and do not belong to the original design. Light is let in through doorways opened to the courtyards and the lanes. The front door openings are usually 8 ft tall and 3.4 ft wide closed by a set of timber doors from the inside and another set of shutters about 5 ft from the outside. Decorative reliefs called hua-liang are commonly found above door openings.\n\nThe planning of the village is based on fung-shui principles. Fung-shui, literally meaning wind-water, is a form of divination based on topographical and architectural features, and is commonly translated as geomancy. It is a science (or quasi-science) which deals with the analysis of the formation of the landscape in selecting sites for graves, buildings, villages or even cities. The notion of siting of towns and buildings by means of oracle divination can be attributed to Shang times from the Chou records,\n\nSchools of Geomancy\n\nThere have been two schools of geomancy since Sung times: the Fukien School and the Kiangsi School. The former puts more emphasis on li, the earth pattern, su, number theories based on the trigrams and hexagrams of the I Ching, and hsiu, astrological elements, which consequently depend more on the use of the compass. The Kiangsi School, on the other hand, looks for ch'i, the cosmic breath, and hsiang, the forms of mountains and watercourses, and so, the use of the compass is subordinate. However, the two schools have fused together since the 19th century.\n\nli # su #\n\nI Ching 易經\n\nhsiu 宿 ch'i hsiang\n\nhua-liang #", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208956, "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": 118, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "86\n\n-\n\nDAVID LUNG\n\nconducted in the New Territories, the British anthropologist ascertains that \"... action in geomancy can be seen to be a form of social control, which works as long as the individuals or communities in contrast are concerned in the long run to maintain peace among themselves,”13 “It is not social,” says Stephen Feuchtwang, the author of An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy (1974), more precisely, \"but the social world is subject to it. It is not a supernatural order such as would entail the concepts of fate or predestination. A good site is where this order is unconfused. The [geomancy] manuals continually stress this in their concern with the clear recognition of patterns, with proper balance, with elegance, and in the frequent injunctions to avoid disaster, confusion and conflict,\"14\n\nThe segment of fung-shui practice which perplexes a great number of foreign scholars, especially the missionary-sinologists, is the application of the principle to burial sites. They find this metaphysical aspect deceptive and superstitious — how can the fortune of the living be benefited from the proper burial of the dead? This has to do with ancestor worship, a cult which is as old as Chinese civilisation itself. The Chinese believe that after a person is dead, he does not turn into a god or deity, but becomes part of the \"principles of Earth, [and] Earth is the source of amoral fortune.\"15 While the bones of the dead are buried underground, the spirit resides in the tablets housed in the ancestral hall. That is why the siting of graves and of the ancestral hall is of prime importance. The location of the ancestral hall should have a commanding view not impeded by any obstacle in front. Thus, such halls are never built inside walled hamlets. Despite all the rituals and rites performed in a ceremonial ancestor worship service, one has to grasp the spiritual essence of the belief. While one is paying tribute to one's ancestor, at the same time, one is teaching (very subtly) one's children to have respect and filial piety towards the aged. Having children who will take care of one at old age is the highest form of virtue in Confucian ethics. Hence, this goes back to the anthropocentric cosmic schemata of Heaven, Earth and Man, where man is in it and part of it.\n\nMicrocosm of Kam Tin's Fung-shui\n\nThe microcosm of Kam Tin's fung-shui can be traced through its topographical features. The Kam Tin village area lies in a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208959, "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": 121, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI: ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T.\n\n89\n\nfor defensive purpose, it is my firm belief that careful planning was previously done in order to make possible the coherent relationship that I have mentioned. If original planning was not enhanced, then what had prompted the builders 200 years later to know where and how to trim off excess settlements in order to build the orthogonal wais? Above all, compared to the Hakka walled village in Sheung Shui, the enclosing wall which was also built during the same period and also for the same protective reasons as Kat Hing Wai, is of much more irregular shape. This further reinforces my assumption.\n\nNone of the four wais coincides in size and proportion. This variation is partly due to the size of the extended family, but most importantly, such adjustments are essential to achieve the subtle relationships after each hamlet's position and orientation have been determined. Thus, a square is not a perfect square, but an idealised (or symbolised) square. The dependency of geometrical configuration and proportion in physical forms in China is not so rigid as that of the Western counterpart of the Renaissance period (incidentally concurrent with Ming Peking and Kat Hing Wai): As Joseph Needham points out in his work Science and Civilisation in China, \"the Chinese did not feel the need for [geometrical] forms of explanation — the component organism in the universal organism followed their Tao [way] each according to its own nature.”21 Compared to the T'ang Dynasty capital Ch'angan, one that has been designed most closely with the canonical prescription, Kat Hing Wai is the epitome of the cosmic archetype, the most fundamental stratum of agricultural China. The organic expression of wall and moat architecture is symbolic of Heaven and Earth. The palace in the north in the capital can be seen to parallel the shrine of the Earth God in Kat Hing Wai in which both are protective powers guarding their respective territories. The orientation to the four quadrants, the representational north-south axis, and the division of the compound into smaller living units are all too profound for the sinologist and missionary Arthur H. Smith to grasp the intricacy. In Village Life in China, he writes:\n\nIt is customary in Western lands to speak of ‘laying out' a city or a town. As applied to a Chinese village, such an expression would be most inappropriate, for it would imply that there have been some traces of design in the arrangement of the parts, whereas the reverse is the truth. A Chinese village, like Topsy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208962, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "92\n\nDAVID LUNG\n\n21 Joseph Needham et al., Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), III, p. 458.\n\n22 Arthur Smith, Village Life in China (New York: Fleming Revell, 1899), pp. 15-29.\n\n23 Wong Chung-hong, \"Walled and Moated...\" in Arts of Asia, July-Aug. 1971, p. 25.\n\nL\n\n24 The term \"astrobiological” (defined by Rene Berthelot), is explained by Paul Wheatley as the \"parallelism between the mathematically expressible regimes of the heavens and the biologically determined rhythms of life on earth.\" Wheatley, p. 414. Quotation is taken from p. 450.\n\n17", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208968, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "98\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nwords. The Ch'ing-ming festival, now usually seen as a festival to commemorate the dead, was in its origin a celebration of spring: all the fires, including the kitchen fires, had to be extinguished in the country; only cold food was used for two or three days. On the third day, new fire was struck, and the spring festival taking place was called “pure” and “bright”: the new fire was pure since taken directly from the source of light, the sun, and bright since it symbolized the growing strength of sunlight that was on the increase after the equinox. This interpretation of the Ch'ing-ming makes better sense than the more usual and popular explanation.14 Although the old name was retained, the meaning of the festival shifted at a later time, probably due to Buddhist influence.\n\nDe Groot sees this relighting of the fires in ancient China as a parallel with the Easter festival and with similar celebrations taking place in the ancient world, where every year the god's ritual death was followed by his resurrection:\n\nAll those legends speaking of death and resurrection, all those feasts passing from mourning to the most exuberant joy have all had one only purpose: the symbolical reproduction of the history of the sun's light and of the phases through which it passes on earth. What one worshipped was this sacred fire of Nature, which is the soul, the life of the universe, and which finds itself engaged in an ever recurring struggle against the god of Darkness, of Death, which exerts itself incessantly to obstruct it in its dispensation of benefits to man. The most significant of all the phases in this solar cycle is the one when the sun reaches the spring equinox, celebrates its victory over darkness and the days grow longer than the nights. The whole earth then starts a new life.15\n\nWhereas in many societies the god's death and resurrection was thus ritually enacted, the Chinese example is characterized by a more rationalistic, naturalistic tendency: the object of the cult was not a particular god for whom a new name was created, but was the sun itself, as one of the heavenly bodies without strong supernatural overtones.\n\nThat this ancient custom might have inspired the Taoist priesthood to introduce it in their own rituals is not unlikely. The relationship between imperial sacrifices, Buddhist rituals, and Taoist practices is not an exception: the eclectic nature of Taoism has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209018, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "148 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nFung Yuen is a coastal valley cutting deeply back from the coast of Tolo Harbor, about a mile and a half deep and perhaps a half mile wide, flanked by hills falling sharply down to the sea on both sides. The eastern hill, the abode, geomantically speaking, of the Green Dragon, has been shaved off in Government engineering works as a \"borrow area\" for bay fill several years, and tun fu ceremonies have been held in Fung Yuen in the past. In 1981, \"borrowing\" was to begin on the western hill, the home of the White Tiger, so new ceremonies were necessary. \n\nThe details of the 1958 and 1960 rituals described by Hayes (JHKBRAS 5:122-124 and JHKBRAS 11:204-209) are roughly similar to those I observed in Fung Yuen in 1981. However, the specialist hired, according to the village head, was not a fung seui sin saang, but a tun fu sin saang (could this perhaps indicate the growth of a new occupational specialization?). He was aided by one elderly assistant. Offerings included both meat and vegetarian dishes; the specialist commented that since many spirits are invited to such a ceremony and one does not know their preferences, a variety of things should be made available to please them all. The basic ceremony consisted of the presentation of offerings and prayers, the burning of candles, paper money, and incense, and the renewing of ritual objects that had been positioned in a similar ceremony a few years earlier, and were now reconsecrated and left in place once more. Large incense pots were filled with fresh sand, into which new bamboo sticks affixed with charms were stuck. Fresh, tall stalks of bamboo, very leafy at the top, with a paper charm attached to each, were erected beside the pots at various locations in the valley. As the village head explained it to me, the ceremony serves to invite a benevolent deity, a po sat, who is a sin sih, or a kind of an official in the heavenly bureaucracy, to protect the village from malevolent spirits who may be disturbed by the earth removal. He is, I believe, represented by the paper charm attached to each tall leafy bamboo stalk. \n\nIt is not only the fine details of ritual acts, nor the numbers and types of ritual objects used, that had significance on this occasion. The spatial patterning of the sites chosen for the series of one major and seven minor ceremonies conducted over the course of \n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209026, "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": 188, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "156\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nremoval to the housing estate, to ensure that a full scale excavation programme could begin in late 1980. Thereby, through uninterrupt-ed intensive work, we hoped to make up part of the lost time.\n\nIn the interim one other incident which showed the strength of village feeling about the fung shui hill occurred in November 1979. In this case, a demolition contract had been let for the houses in the old Chung Mei and Lo Uk villages. The Rural Committee and the village elders had agreed, but unexpectedly there was opposition when the contractor began to move his bulldozer into position to start the work. This time, it came from the young men of the village, and we were informed by the Rural Committee Chairman that they could not be persuaded to agree.\n\nUpon investigation I found that it was not (in the main) the demolition which was being objected to, but rather the route by which the bulldozer was to obtain access to the old village sites. This was over the face of the same fung shui hill that had been causing the prolonged delay, and naturally it was being objected to.\n\nI greatly wished the contract to proceed, on the principle that, when you are dealing with villagers, it is bad to go back on a deci-sion reached with their leaders, besides having to explain to the Finance Branch of the Government Secretariat the claims from the thwarted contractor. However, when I saw how things were, and being mindful of the wisdom of not interfering with the hill, I instructed staff to take the bulldozer by an alternative route. This would still open bare earth on the hillside but it would be out of the sight of the villages, which was what mattered, and it would be on a route to be formed for roadworks at a later stage. In a meet-ing held in my office, the twelve or so young men who had insisted on accompanying the elders, were perfectly agreeable to this solution and the demolition continued.\n\nThe end of the story is quickly told. The residents of the four villages moved into the new public housing accommodation when it was ready for occupation, the Project Manager (P.W.D.) was able to let his contract, and the successful contractor was at last able to carry out uninterrupted major excavation of soil from the hill-sides. There was trouble at the seashore where mariculturists had to be moved to enable a pier to be built and a channel dredged for the barges that would take away the soil to the Tsuen Wan Bay reclamation: but that is another story!\n\nHong Kong, June 1981\n\nJAMES HAYES", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209031, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n161\n\nOhio. Other legacies went to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, both in New York City.\n\nIf we find any more information on this matter, we will let you know.\n\ncc: Robert G. Gennett\n\nAnnex 1:\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nTerry A. McNealy\n\nLibrary Director\n\nas extracted from a newspaper cutting from The Doyles-town Intelligencer of 1st September, 1910 sent by the Library Director of the Spruance Library.\n\nDr William Edgar Geil, who has been engaged for a year in making political and literary investigations in China, returned to his home in Doylestown, Wednesday night, after completely circumnavigating the earth and getting material enough for three volumes which will be boiled down to one companion volume for the \"Great Wall of China,\" which he published last year.\n\n\"It has been my most successful journey,\" said Dr. Geil to an Intelligencer reporter, Thursday morning, at his home on West Court street. \"I have visited all of the twenty capitals of the Chinese empire, investigated the political situation in each, the economical conditions and gathered a library of Chinese literature different from any in existence. There is really a ton of this literature which is now on its way over and is one of the most remarkable collections ever made.\n\nThis was Dr. Geil's third visit to China. In 1902 he travelled from Shanghai to Bhamo, Burmah, and wrote \"The Yankee on the Yangtse.\" In 1908 he explored the whole length of the Great Wall and wrote a book upon it which had a wonderful sale. It is a great compliment that he has already sold the English rights to his book on his last journey, although it is not yet written.\n\nAnnex 2: as extracted from a newspaper cutting from The Doyles-town Intelligencer of 7th May, 1925 sent by the Library Director.\n\nThe residue of the estate, including manuscripts and collections are given to Mrs. Geil. In the event Mrs. Geil did not survive it was provided the collection and rest of the estate be given to the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209055, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TAOISM\n\n185\n\n(A), object of worship by the Taoist priesthood. The common people consider Yü-huang Ta-ti, or the Jade Emperor as the supreme head of the divine hierarchy, whereas the Taoist priests worship as their highest creative powers the Three Pure Ones, the Celestial Worthy of the Original Beginning, the Celestial Worthy Ling-Pao and the Celestial Worthy Tao-Te.\n\nAs a religious organization, Taoism is divided into several sects, each of which has its own emphasis or specialty, roughly corresponding with five major areas of Taoist concern: good conduct, study of classic literature, alchemy (in modern times rather \"inner\" alchemy, or the search for longevity by \"nourishing one's vital energy\"), magical and religious rites, and finally divinatory practices.\n\nThe philosophical ideas of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu slowly permeated Chinese society. \"In office a Confucian, in retirement a Taoist\" became the tag of the scholar-official and even his Confucianism, after the thirteenth century, was to a large extent philosophical Taoism in disguise (H. Welch, The Parting of the Way. Boston, Beacon Press, 1957, p. 158). The Neo-Confucians borrowed the Taoist concept of an underlying unity, which \"does\" nothing (i.e., does not make any purposive effort) but accomplishes everything. They took the old Confucian concept of the Rites, li, and extended it to include the laws of nature as well as of man. They also adopted the Taoist goals of minimizing desires, returning to the purity of one's original nature, and identification of the individual with the universe.\n\nThrough the centuries, the Taoist influence on Chan Buddhism, which appealed particularly to intellectuals, flourished in China from the T'ang through the Sung dynasties and in Japan from the time of the Sung until today. The Japanese call it Zen, which \"rejects verbal teaching, disregards logic, discards morality, and regards Heaven and Earth as unkind. It sees no value in good deeds. The only way to be saved is to do nothing about it. Zen believes that salvation, in fact, is a return to our original nature, that no one else can do it for us, and that doing it makes us into the most ordinary and wonderful people\" (H. Welch, The Parting of the Way, p. 159).\n\nBecause the Chinese and Japanese cultures were considered in Japan to be essentially the same, due to the pan-Asian concept dobun doshu (same script, same race), Taoism spread from China...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209081, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "GEOMANTIC TERMS \n\n211 \n\nTo ensure the correct flow of water through a site the geomancer makes use of two ancient patterns commonly known as xiantian ★ A and houtian ✶ which refer to two different arrangements of the eight trigrams2. Since the trigrams also symbolise eight major compass points the xian and houtian are, in fact, two different methods of organising space. Geomantic practice requires that water flows from its zhengqiao wei trigram in the xiantian to the position occupied by the same trigram in the houtian. For instance, water originating in the qian #(E) trigram, which in the xiantian is correlated with the north, must flow towards the southwest, that is towards the compass point occupied by qian in the houtian. One must, however, remember that geomantic compass points are the reverse of ours so that north is south; east, west; etc.) Moreover, in its journey from xian to houtian water must always flow in front of the chao (which see). \n\nSince geomancy is a directional science it has coined a number of terms for the twenty-four compass points and the four quarters. Three of these terms, namely shan ↳, xiang 6, and zuo, have been systematically misinterpreted since J. Edkins' day. \n\nShan has consistently been taken to mean “site” which is only true in those rare cases when it is used as an abbreviation of shan-long. In all other instances shan means \"compass point\" so that shi’er shan + refers to the twenty-four compass points and not to twenty-four sites. \n\nXiang and zuo are two esoteric names for two of the four quarters. Just as qinglong ✯✯ stands for east and baihu éʼn ✯ for west, xiang means south and zuo north. But it must be stressed that these terms do not necessarily refer to actual compass points but indicate the back, front, left and right sides of a grave. \n\nLike other parts of the earth, geomantic sites are also subject to cosmic influences but a detailed explanation of all stellar influences would go beyond the scope of this paper. (Readers interested in the subject are referred to B. Frank's study of the jiugong Лg and E.H. Schafer's Pacing the Void, T'ang Approaches to the Stars. University of California Press, London and Berkeley, 1977) \n\nTwo sets of so-called stars play a role in geomancy but, for the most part, these are not real celestial bodies masquerading under esoteric names but purely imaginary entities conventionally referred to as xing or stars. \n\n* Much effort has been expended to explain how the xiantian changed into the houtian but none of the explanations are entirely convincing One of the best known is M. Granet, La Pensee chinoise (1934), reprinted Albin Michel, 1968, pp. 167 sq.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209083, "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": 245, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "GEOMANTIC TERMS\n\nEginxing which is synonymous with su,\n\n213\n\n+qizheng which refers to four groups of seven mansions, each group having been assigned to one of the four quarters.\n\nAll the features mentioned so far, whether topographical or stellar, are able to interact with each other by the simple process of assigning one of the Five Elements (wood, fire, water, metal and earth) to each of them. According to the Theory of the Five Elements (see J. Needham, Science and Civilization, Vol. II, 1956, pp. 243 sq.), elements can produce or destroy each other and whatever is associated with them shares their fate. If, for instance, the square shape of a mountain is associated with fire and the star which exerts an influence on it is linked to water, the star's influence will predominate since water extinguishes fire. But the Five Elements also \"live\" a twelve-stage life of their own called shi'er gong + which is only another way of saying that their strength waxes and wanes. To go back to our previous example, if, when measurements are taken, fire is in an ascending phase and water in a descending one, the two will neutralise each other instead of one annihilating the other.\n\nThe relative strength of the Five Elements is particularly important when it comes to cyclical characters which are also correlated with them. One of the methods used to correlate the two is called nayin whereby the sixty stem-branch compounds normally used by the Chinese to identify years in the sixty-year cycle are broken down into five groups of twelve compounds, each group then being assigned one of the Five Elements in the usual manner. (See Chao Wei-pang, \"The Chinese Science of Fate-calculation,” in Folklore Studies, Vol. V, 1946, pp. 292–293.)\n\nGeomancers use the nayin to determine whether a particular site is the right one for a given person, a procedure referred to as fenjin ✩✩. It involves calculating whether the deceased's xianming or kege, that is the year, month, day and date of his birth expressed in cyclical characters, and the zhukuei, or date of birth of the eldest living son, are strong enough to dominate the combined strength of the site's xiang and zuo. If the former is stronger than the latter, the site is deemed suitable; if not, it is rejected.\n\nObviously, such a short paper cannot do justice to the rich terminology of fengshui, but it is hoped that the few terms listed herein will stimulate interest in the vast body of geomantic literature to which scant attention has so far been paid.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209086, "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": 248, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "OFRAN\n\n*\n\nPlate 3. An Earth God shrine outside the entrance gates of a temple below Lion Rock, built by Chaozhou immigrants.\n\nL\n\nPlate 4. A small, single room boat people's temple at Wong Uk, now far inland due to extensive reclamation. It has a very small stylised ridge decoration and murals on the upper face of the facade.\n\n1\n\n?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209087, "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": 249, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "聖德醬香姐豆\n\nPlate 5. Spirit doors seen from inside the temple. In the photograph they are closed, obscuring the front entrance. One leaf of the front door, which is open, can be seen with its guardian general painted on the outside.\n\nPlate 6. A main altar in a small single-hall boat people's temple in Wong Uk dedicated to Tian Hou. The two side altars contain, on the left a plaque dedicated to Huang Da Xian (Wong Tai Sin) and on the right an image of the Earth God, Tu Di Gong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209091, "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": 253, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "Plate 13. An unroofed open shrine in rural Macau, dedicated to She Ji.\n\nthe spirit of the Soil and Harvests.\n\nア\n\nMLE\n\nPlate 14. A street shrine in Western district dedicated to the Earth God\n\nand his consort. maintained by an elderly lady.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209163, "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-1981", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "52 \n\nHUBERT SEIWERT \n\nof fu-luan cults in Taiwan in recent years?\". \n\nThere are many links between fu-luan cults and practices and the I-kuan Tao sect. Most of the texts which expose the teachings of this sect have been revealed by \"spirit-writing\" since the beginning of the sect in the nineteenth century28. Fu-luan sessions are held regularly, normally four times a year?, during which new revelations and instructions are received. Furthermore, the content of the teachings which are propagated by I-kuan Tao show strong similarities to those of many of the common fu-luan cults10. This is the case especially where the religious interpretation of the present time, the assessment of the historical role of the Chinese tradition and the confrontation with Western influence is concerned. It is these elements of the beliefs which show most clearly the popular religious responses to the modernization process. \n\nReligious interpretation of the present time: traditionalism \n\nTo illustrate some basic elements of the world-view of these cults I quote a few passages from a revelation of the god Shang Ti which was given during a fu-luan session in 1977: \n\nFrom 1914 to 1939 two world wars broke out. As a result the correct truth was almost eradicated and the traditional culture went up in flames. Streams of blood were shed and millions of corpses covered the earth. Wives were separated from their husbands and their sons scattered to the four winds, unbearable was the misery. If this happens again, if a third world war breaks out, mankind will face destruction. For the military weapons which are developed by the modern sciences are being improved day by day, nuclear weapons are perfected day and night. In such a situation we must give up our hope for the Great Harmony and the peace in the world. Therefore, there is only one way, if we want to avoid the final catastrophe: the original orthodox tradition of the Tao which our Chinese nation possesses has to be restored. The four social relations (szu wei9) and the eight virtues (pa teλ) [must be put into practice again]. We must continue the past in order to save the future, that means to follow the orthodox tradition of the Tao which has been transmitted from Yao, Shun, Yü, T’ang, Wen Wang and Wu Wang, Confucius and Mencius. Only in this way can one escape this huge cosmic catastrophe.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209315, "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-1981", "page_number": 218, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "204\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nKung Temple. The dyke at Tin Sam Valley was across half the river as the river bed here was high, but the others crossed the whole stream. When the railway and Tai Po Road were built these main canals were carried across in great culverts. Other villagers in Sha Tin used less sophisticated irrigation systems, merely taking a small mountain stream and distributing its waters over the fields.\n\nThe dykes across the Shing Mun or Tin Sam streams would be washed away in each storm; they required to be rebuilt about twice each year. Each family in turn was responsible and would announce the dyke building day in advance by beating a gong through the streets. Every family had to send at least one adult to carry stones, earth, and straw (women) or place them (men). Families without land in that area were excused. The dykes were just heaps of stones, packed with clay and straw without anchors (note - wooden beams for anchors were too precious, and even if anchored the dyke would still be swept away in typhoon storm).\n\nThe main dyke at Tai Wai required communal building (Tai Wai/Tung Lo Wan), and the Hin Tin dyke required communal building (Tin Sam/Keng Hau).\n\nA tau of land: some causes of misunderstanding\n\nMisunderstandings have arisen once or twice when seeking answers to the questions \"How many seeds were needed to plant 1 tau of land\" and \"How much land would 1 tau of seeds plant\". The questions were asked to try to clarify if 1 tau of land and 1 tau of seeds were complementary. On several occasions the answer was “2-4 shing” and “several tau” respectively. The misunderstanding seems to have arisen from the fact that seeds were planted in seed beds and fields were planted with sprouts, and the first question was answered by the respondent as if the question was, \"How big a seedbed was needed to plant seeds for 1 tau of land\", and \"How many fields would a seed bed 1 tau in size cope with\". In both cases the equation 1 tau of seeds (yat tau t'in →†¤斗田) was treated as being too obvious to conceivably be the point of the question. In both cases it seems to be assumed that the seedbed should be 1/5 - 1/4 the area of the later fields.\n\nAn example of village morality: the problem of cash incomes, the importance of seamen's money\n\nI discussed with Wai Hon-leung the problem of how subsistence", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209513, "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-1982", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "148\n\n/-i/ #k'iw2 'earth'\n\n/-iw/ 橋 kiw4 'bridge'\n\n/-im/ 染 yim1 'dye'\n\n/-ing/ king1 'see'\n\n/-ip/ 劫 kip4 'robbery'\n\n/-ik/ 舌 sik4 'tongue'\n\n/-0/ 過 kwol 'pass'\n\n/-oy/ 菜 ts'oy3 'vegetables'\n\n/-ong/ 床 ts'ong2 'bed'\n\n/-ok/ 國 kwok3 'country'\n\n/-u/ 古 ku3 'ancient'\n\n/-uy/ 妹 muy4 'younger sister'\n\n/-ung/ p mung2\n\n/-uk/ 竹 tyuk3 'bamboo'\n\n/-0/ 靴 höl 'boots'\n\n/ông/ 傷 söngl 'wound'\n\n/-ök/ 脚 kök3 'foot'\n\nLAURENT SAGART\n\n#ti4 'door'\n\n#ty'oy1\n\n#ty'ong2\n\n/-ü/ 去 hül 'go'\n\n/-üng/ sông2 'lack'\n\n/-ük/ #k'ük3 'boat'\n\nThe vowel system of KHW consists of 4 lax vowels /a, i, ü, u/ and their 4 tense counterparts /aa, e, ö, o/ respectively. /ü/ and /ö/ are similar to the vowels in French pu and peu. When the vowels occur alone without a final (that is, not followed by any final consonant), they are distinguished only by their timbre, and the contrast between /a/ and /aa/ is neutralized. When combining with a final consonant to form a final, the lax vowels emerge as short vowels, while the tense vowels emerge as long vowels. Simultaneously, all vowels except /a/ and /aa/ become diphthongs: the tense vowels /e, ö, o/ are realized as opening diphthongs, starting mid-high and ending mid-low, while the lax vowels /i, ü, u/ are realized as closing diphthongs, starting mid-high and ending high. Similar diphthongs of lesser amplitude are sometimes heard when the vowels occur alone. When combining with a final consonant, /a/ and /aa/ exhibit simultaneous contrasts in length, frontness (the tense vowel /aa/ being always more fronted than the lax vowel /a/, even emerging", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209514, "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-1982", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "149\n\nas -ae, when the following consonant is -ng or -k), as well as a contrast in voice quality: the lax finals are accompanied by lax voice, while the tense finals are accompanied by tense voice. This contrast in phonation type is particularly noticeable with the tense/lax pairs of finals -aeng/-ang and -aek/-ak, in which the tense vowel is always accompanied by a very sharp, metallic voice. In this way, all tense finals are easily distinguished from their lax counterparts using a set of cumulative cues such as length, timbre, direction of diphthong, and voice quality.\n\nOnly three finals ending in a final consonant are not part of a tense/lax pair: /-im, -ip, -iw/. Although optionally realized as a closing diphthong, their vowel is long and its aperture at onset can stand anywhere between that of a mid-high i and a fairly low e, the vowel sounds in English bid and bed. Admittedly, these finals could be interpreted as /-em, -ep, -ew/ with equal plausibility.\n\nThe restrictions to the combination of vowels and consonants within finals may be stated as follows:\n\n(1): rounded vowels /u, ö, u, o/ are not permitted to combine with labial consonants /-m, -p, -w/;\n\n(2): front vowels /i, e, ü, ö/ are not permitted to combine with the palatal consonant /-y/.\n\nAll other combinations, except /-em, -ep, -ew/, are permitted and actually occur as finals.\n\n4. Finals, comparisons with SC.\n\nFrom a comparative standpoint, there exist important differences between SC and KHW finals:\n\nKHW finals */-i, -ue, -oo/ of Old Cantonese were diphthongized to SC /-ei, -ui, -o/ when preceded by certain types of initials, while /-i, -ue, -oo/ were retained after other types of initials. This split did not occur in KHW.\n\nSC: -ei;\n\nSC: -i:\n\nKHW: -i:\n\nThus we find:\n\nti4 'earth'; l 'flag' but also tyi3 'paper'\n\nsil 'four'; #k'i2 sil 'poem' and #", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209687, "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-1982", "page_number": 344, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "322\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nup the experience of the 32 years since the founding of our People's Republic and has made an evaluation of the Cultural Revolution in particular. Regrettably, it has not said a word on the \"May 7 cadre schools\" that involved hundreds of thousands of intellectuals and their families.\n\nThe experience is still fresh in our minds. No doubt we can have fragments of this history written down in books like this (which are necessary and valuable). But if there were no objective work done by historians on the background and influence of cadre schools, then a void would be created for this 'earth-shaking' era of Chinese history. We've paid a high price for it. And it would be more and more difficult to fill up the void with the lapse of time.\n\nHow can we account for ourselves before the people if we pay our fees but leave behind nothing but a blank?\n\nI would like to give my humble opinions and offer some simple clues to those interested in this episode of history.\n\nMdm. Yang was sent down to a cadre school in July, 1970, about one year after I was so transferred.\n\nAs far back as 1968, the Cultural Revolution saw an end to the power struggle that was raging all over the country. Except Taiwan, all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions replaced their Party committees with the newly-established \"revolutionary committees\". The Heilongjiang provincial revolutionary committee, which was set up as early as the beginning of 1967, had those cadres who had not been absorbed into the new organ of political power transferred to the Liuhe county to be engaged in the so-called \"struggle-criticism-transformation\" campaign following Mao Zedong's \"May 7 Directive\" of 1966, after which the cadre schools were named. Mao highly commended the practice and written instructions were circulated all over the country. In the summer of that year, a struggle to seize power broke out between two student groups in Qinghua University, Mao despatched troops and workers' propaganda teams to schools and later workers' teams were also ordered to be stationed in cultural and educational organisations throughout China. Mao called upon the educated class to receive \"re-education\" and also launched a campaign to \"purify the class ranks\", which was in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209815, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "52\n\ngenerations. With the general increase of agricultural activity since 1949 (due to the influx of industrious refugees), tenancies are more frequently called in. Sometimes a mere pretext covers the real reason that a hardworking tenant has spent much capital in improving poor land which the landlord now wishes to lease again at a higher rent. It is always wise before intervening in tenancy cases to be sure that a good reason exists for recovery of the land. These reasons might be that the tenant is a poor one who makes little use of the land; the tenant has failed to pay rent or has otherwise committed a breach of conditions, e.g. illegal Temporary Structures; the landowner is short of land and has a large family. Where it is necessary on the facts to find in favour of the landlord, it is often easier to persuade the tenant to comply by offering to find him alternative Crown Land.\n\n(i) It is a recurring feature in many cases that tenants tend to sink capital into land, particularly with chicken farms, without having any real lease to protect them. Rapacious landlords take advantage of this and often deliberately refuse to issue written leases. I have had no success whatsoever in trying to educate tenants in this respect.\n\n10. Graves\n\n(a) Bodies are normally buried in an earth grave (huet chong) for 5 years or so. At the end of that time, they are usually exhumed and the bones arranged in an earthenware funerary pot (kam tap). Richer families and clans will sometimes install the exhumed bones in a masonry grave (shan fan) instead of a funerary pot.5\n\n(b) Huet chong (#) and kam taps () are always sited in groups on hillsides or ground where the fung shui is good. It is not usual to build or cultivate near these areas.\n\n(c) The choice of site of a shan fan () is again dictated by fung shui (k). Considerable sums of money may be spent in fees for the fung shui sin shang (★★★4) and in construction, although workmanship is rarely first class. The site is usually high up, commanding a view of water in some form or", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209816, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "53\n\nother, and on a ridge or spur which represents, for instance, a dragon, snake, shrimp or crab in its formation. The principle is that the animal represented is a beneficial one which will guard the deceased who, in his turn, will watch over the interests of his descendants on this earth if sufficiently propitiated in the next world by his earthly descendants. This conception is important because it explains the strenuous objections usually met where the fung shui (K) of a burial place is disturbed. The commonest objections are against the cutting or digging of the ridge or spur at any point directly above the grave itself, since this will destroy the creature whose influence is protecting the deceased.\n\n(d) Important graves are frequently ones of recorded ancestors or founders of a clan. These graves are normally flanked by two small shrines (hau to), one on either side at a distance of roughly 20 feet, and sometimes one above as well. Their object is to persuade the earth god to look after the grave.\n\n(c) A shan fan sometimes falls into disuse and neglect by reason of the disappearance of all descendants or through other reasons. A sure sign of this is the removal of the pei shek (Z) or stone plaque on which details of the deceased are recorded. At the two grave-worshipping festivals of Ching Ming () and Chung Yeung (†), it is normal to tidy up huet chong (*), kam tap (4), and shan fan (4) and to decorate them with patches of white lime and lucky money as well as joss sticks.\n\n(f) Standing with one's back to the pei shek (%) of a shan fan (1) and facing the same way as the grave, a half circle in front with a radius of 10 yards is normally sacrosanct. Disturbance of the ground is regarded with strong disfavour. Traditionally, the left arm of this half moon is protected by a green dragon and the right arm by a white tiger.\n\n(g) The degree of fung shui (IK) involved is relative and, in some cases where there apparently exists no strong feeling on the subject, a road or cutting may be allowed right up against a grave. At other times, very strong objections indeed may be raised. Generally the strongest feelings lie with clans that have sufficient land and money to carry on traditional ancestor worship and to keep the proper spirit alive.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209819, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "56\n\nwith kuk (*) and the other with mai (*), and candles and joss-sticks placed standing in the rice. Worshipping takes place at the shrines of the earth god (t'o tei £) and kitchen god within the house. If the applicant can still afford it, he holds a feast for friends and relatives who often bring presents of mirrors and furniture.\n\n12. Some Fung Shui (¥) Problems\n\n(a) Certain localities, particularly hills, are sometimes regarded as throwing out good or bad influences, according to the animal which the locality represents. In the same manner, strong objections are frequently raised to the opening of windows in a house that faces some other house or temple. The window represents the open mouth of a tiger ready to swallow up the occupants of the building facing it. A lamp flashing in the direction of a house is equally obnoxious.\n\n(b) Antidotes to these evil rays or influence are often difficult to apply. One method is for the aggrieved householders to put up a paat kwa (^) or eight-sided diagram on the outside of their house. Alternatively, a mirror sometimes will suffice to reflect the evil rays. A third method is to erect some effective barrier in between, such as trees or bamboos, with a temporary wall until the trees have attained sufficient height and bushiness to be an effective screen.\n\n(c) These objections are for the most part confined to Cantonese rather than Hakka (). However, because of their greater belief in animism, Hakka (*) are the more concerned with fung shui (¥) trees and rocks, damage to which they will strenuously oppose.\n\n13. Oaths\n\n(a) Before the lease of the New Territories to the Crown in 1898 and the coming of British law, the question of which party to a dispute was telling the truth was customarily settled by a form of trial by ordeal in a temple. Both parties would attend at a mutually agreed temple (miu, never a clan temple or Tsz t'ong) with witnesses and all interested villagers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209851, "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "88\n\nChinese \n\nLoan Word \n\nCharacters \n\nMeaning \n\nPak-choi \n\n白菜 \n\nAnother name for Chinese cabbage, \n\n*Pak pai \n\n白牌 \n\nLiterally 'white label', meaning hire cars which are in fact operating illegally because they are not licenced to carry passengers for a fee. \n\nPekingese \n\n北京(狗) \n\nA small long-haired dog, of the pug type, orig. brought from the Imperial Palace at Pekin. \n\nPekoe \n\n白毫 \n\nA superior kind of black tea, so called from the leaves being picked young with the down still on them. \n\n*Pinyin \n\n拼音 \n\nLiterally 'to write according to sound' \n\nreferring to the romanization system used to write Chinese rather than the traditional Chinese characters. \n\nPetuntse, \n\n白墩子 \n\nA white earth, consisting of pulverized granite; used in combination with kaolin in the manufacture of Chinese porcelain, \n\nPetuntze \n\nA 4-stringed Chinese musical instrument plucked like a guitar and having a large body resembling a lute and a neck with 12 or more frets that leads into the body.\n\nPipa \n\n琵琶 \n\n*Putonghua \n\n普通話 \n\nLiterally 'ordinary speech', the standard dialect of China. \n\n*Renminbi \n\n人民幣 \n\nLiterally 'the people's currency', referring to the currency of the People's Republic of China. \n\nSamfoo \n\n衫褲 \n\nA style of casual dress worn by Chinese women, consisting of waisted blouse and trousers, \n\nSampan \n\n舢舨 \n\nApplied by Europeans in the China seas to any small boat of Chinese pattern. \n\nSamshu \n\n三燒 \n\nAn alcoholic liquor distilled in China from boiled and fermented rice. \n\n*Sharpei, \n\n沙皮 \n\nLiterally 'sand-skinned', referring to the rough and loose skin of this breed of dog, formerly known as the 'Chinese Fighting Dog'. \n\nsharpi \n\nTo drug or otherwise render insensible, \n\nand ship on board a vessel wanting hands. \n\nShanghai \n\n上海 \n\nA soft undressed Chinese silk. \n\nShantung \n\n山東 \n\nA Chinese breed of small dog similar to a Pekingese. \n\nShih tzu \n\n獅子 \n\nOne of the finer varieties of black tea.\n\nSouchong \n\n小種", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209884, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "121\n\ntemple repairs. Ap Lei Chau was a fishing port and its temples were very popular with the boat people in the anchorage. They thronged to them at the festivals and to the performance of opera and puppets organized by the chik lei, but it seems that they were not allowed to share in the management of these events. My informants recalled that at one time, even, because of a dispute over seating arrangements at an opera performance, it was decided not to seek donations from boat people in future at festival times. This happened before the Pacific war, and from that time on, the decision has been followed. On the other hand, the boat people's contributions have been sought for temple repairs whenever these have become necessary.\" The tablets in both temples on the island show that, as at Tai O and Cheung Chau, other large centres of boat and land populations, both communities have combined on these occasions, no doubt because the high cost of the work made it necessary to get contributions from every possible source.\n\nThe Earth God Shrines at Sai Ying Pun and Tai Ping Shan\n\n(1) Sheung Fung Lane (4)\n\nAt Sheung Fung Lane in the Sai Ying Pun district of Hong Kong Island there is an old shrine to the Fuk Tak Kung, the earth god of that locality. It has a large granite altar, carved with figures at each end, which has corners cut to simulate bamboo trunks and is inscribed with Chinese characters. These give the names of the persons (listed by their shop names) styled tai chik lei who contributed the costs of erection in the year 1910-1911, together with the name of the overall organiser, styled chung lei (1) dated the year before. However, this was a reconstruction, as the present managers have in their possession, dated from the year 1905-1906, a large banner, a hanging cloth and an umbrella, all well-preserved and made for use in processions round the area in time of need of spiritual protection*. Local tradition supports an earlier origin of the shrine, and traces its beginnings to a great epidemic that caused many deaths in the district at \"an earlier time\". This might have been the great\n\n* Plates 1 to 5 illustrate this section.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209885, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "122\n\noutbreak of bubonic plague in 1894.22 The reason given by old members for establishing a Fuk Tak Kung(4) is that in his lifetime the god was a noted Chinese medical practitioner, and therefore well suited to become the guardian god of a crowded city district. The shrine may, however, be even older than this. The district was already well established by the 1850s,28 and probably had guardian shrines from the outset.\n\nThe god looked after a specific area of the city. The old 'chops' and wood-block charms that survive from pre-war days carry the name Sai Ying Pun in the title. The boundaries, as given by the leaders active in the mid 1960s, some of whom had been associated with the committee from their earliest years through their fathers and grandfathers' service as managers, centred on the shrine's location at Sheung Fung Lane. However, it is said that, in pre-war years, among the many persons who came regularly to worship at the shrine on the god's birthday on the 18th day of the first lunar month, were people from outside the boundaries and even from Kowloon, so great was the reputation of the shrine. Many of the outside worshippers came in groups known as pao wui.(4)25 It was stressed, too, that this shrine had no connection with the Tai Ping Shan Fuk Tak Kung described below, for that earth god shrine lay in, and the god looked after, a completely separate locality.\n\nThe shrine was tended by a keeper appointed by the managers. When my informants were young, the keeper was an old woman who lived on the premises and died there about 1930, aged over 80. There is a splendid photograph of her still kept in the shrine.\n\nThe body of managers comprises a minimum of 34 persons each year, but has often been around the 40-50 mark. Its duties are solely to do with arranging for chanting by nam mo lo(1) (Taoist priests) at the god's birthday in the first moon and at the Yue Lan or Hungry Ghosts festival in the seventh moon. At the god's birthday, but not at Yue Lan, the religious rituals have always been accompanied by a puppet show (never opera) for the traditional three days and four nights.20 The managers also have the responsibility of arranging for the procession of the god through the district under his protection", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209889, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "126\n\nmatters only. It was not a kaifong that looked after the general affairs of the area. This duty seems to have been performed in the early period by a committee of merchant and trade guild elite figures drawn from a wider area. This body sat in the Man Mo Temple in nearby Hollywood Road, and a special kung sor (kung so) or 'public affairs office' was built for its meetings in the first year of the T'ung Chih reign (1862-1863). This is the date of the inscription above the door of the building, which is still in existence. This Kaifong was later (from 1871) effectively subsumed in the Tung Wah Hospital Committee.”1\n\nThe Earth God Shrine at Li Po Lung Path, Kennedy Town\n\nThere was another, lesser Fuk Tak Kung shrine in an adjoining, equally old urban area at Li Po Lung Path, Kennedy Town. When I made enquiries in 1974, no one could tell the whole history of the shrine or in which year it was established.\n\nAccording to an old kaifong Mr. Chow Kwok-kwan, one of the former managers of the shrine, who was 90 years old in 1974, the shrine was already located on the slope behind 14 Li Po Lung Path when he first came to live in the district in 1914. At that time the shrine was only a wooden hut measuring about 12' x 5' with a height of about 8'. He was told by some elderly kaifongs that the shrine had been there for more than twenty years, which may link its origins to the great plague of 1894, as with the altar at Sheung Fung Lane. At first the shrine only housed the Sam Shing Kung, the deities representing Heaven, Earth and Man, the three Powers of Nature; another deity was added to the shrine: the Fuk Tak Kung or earth god (To Tei) who is responsible for the peace and prosperity of the district. Finally, an image of Kwun Yam, Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, was also placed there. In view of its shabby state, Mr. Chow himself reconstructed the temple as a brick structure of more or less the same size about the year 1940.\n\nLater\n\nIn June 1966 it was destroyed by torrential rain, but up to 1974, when I made my enquiries, none of the interested parties had come forward with a reconstruction or resiting project.\n\nSince 1940, it had been the regular practice for the residents of Kennedy Town to celebrate at the shrine annually, usually on...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209890, "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "127\n\nthe 18th to 20th days of the 1st moon, the birthday of the earth god. To celebrate the occasion, a Committee of twelve members was formed. One of these was the Chairman (Chung Li), one the Vice-chairman (Hip Li) and the rest were ordinary Committee members (Chik Li). All the Committee members were chosen from among those interested in taking up the post by casting divining blocks before the gods on the altar, as at Ap Lei Chau; thus, as we have seen, in a different way from the nearer Sheung Fung and Tai Ping Shan shrines. The Committee was also responsible for subsidizing the function in case there was a deficit.\n\nThe annual celebrations took place, not at the shrine, but in Hau Wo Street, a few hundred yards away. A temporary metal structure of about 12' X 8' was erected for the purpose of staging a puppet show. Sacrifice was offered and joss papers and candles were burnt. To conclude the ceremony, there was a distribution of gifts, mainly rice and other foodstuffs, to the poor of the district.\n\nAccording to Mr. Chow, local residents were generally very interested in this event. They believed that by celebrating the festival they would be more fortunate and prosperous throughout the whole year.\"4\n\nThe Earth God Shrines at Nam On Fong and Sai Wan Ho, Shau Kei Wan\n\nI turn now to other shrines of this kind at Shau Kei Wan, in the eastern part of Hong Kong Island. Shau Kei Wan has a good harbour and was a fishing port and boat people's anchorage long before 1841. Its land population was given as 1,200 persons in the first Hong Kong census of May 1841. By 1860 it was listed as having 2,561 land dwellers and 4,338 boat people. In the mid 1860s it was said to have had 307 houses and shops, and 603 boats. In the 1871 census it had 2,360 land inhabitants. At the 1911 census the land population had risen to 11,727 and the number of persons on boats was given as 6,440.5\n\nThese figures include not only the town section of Shau Kei Wan, long known as Tung Tai Kai (東大街) or Great East Street, but a number of villages, and stone quarries with their attached", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209892, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "129\n\nBefore its first removal to permit further development of the area, the shrine is said to have been very popular with local villagers, shopkeepers and quarrymen. The whole village of Tsin Shui Ma Tau, to which my informants belonged, went down to the shrine on the god's birthday, and the customary dinner was held in the open near the pier. After its removal to another site, it was less popular with local people who apparently did not like the new location. This site was cleared in its turn in the mid 1960s, and the incense burner and other property were moved for safe-keeping to one of the Shau Kei Wan temples. Eventually, the committee gathered funds for a proper temple and for the first time in its history the god was housed in a permanent building and not, as previously, in the open or in a wooden hut. A brief account with excellent photographs appeared in The Star newspaper for 27 January, 1970.*\n\nIn the post-war period this shrine has been linked with the Nam On Fong Yue Lan (M) Festival Committee but before the war, and up to the time of its first removal, there was no such Yue Lan committee. Moreover, the annual celebration was not, as now, held during the Yue Lan festival in the 7th lunar month but took place on the earth god's birthday on the 2nd day of the 2nd month. The religious service was, at that date, always accompanied by a puppet show. The arrangements were in the hands of a group of village elders, later joined by local shopkeepers as the population grew. The local people visited it on the first and fifteenth days of each month, and offered a pig's head on the birth of a son and a chicken on the birth of a daughter. The change in the date of the main celebration came after the war, and the reason for it is said to have been the large number of deaths in the district during the Japanese Occupation, and the advisability of worshipping the unquiet spirits of the deceased lest they harm the living.\n\nIn the pre-war period the managers of this shrine, styled chik lei, came together through a combination of mutual acquaintance, accepted reliability, ability, willingness to donate a minimum level of funds towards the expenses of the festival costs,\n\n* These photographs are reproduced at plates 6-8.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209893, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "130\n\nand interest in the proceedings. There was no restriction on the number of chik lei and all could take part in the selection of the chief manager or chung lei. This was done before the shrine at an advertised time. A man with a gong called the chik lei together. One by one they threw the divining blocks. Three throws were made. The first to obtain three positive responses became the chung lei.\n\nAfter this, none of the persons who had still to throw could do so. The proceedings were over: the god had decided who should be chief manager for that year. I was told that anyone, regardless of which dialect group he belonged to, could become a chik lei, and had a chance of becoming chung lei. Boat people could become chik lei, and wealthy fishermen had performed the duties of the office. Once elected, it was up to the chief manager to select his assistants, who became tai chik lei or senior managers. They were usually his friends and business associates.\n\nwar.\n\nThe image was not at that date taken in procession, as it has been since the institution of the Yue Lan Festival Committee post-. Nor was it taken out even in a plague. On the last such occasion in Shau Kei Wan, about 1920, the image of Tam Kung from the main Tung Tai Kai temple, accompanied by a boy seated in a knife chair, who was thought to have received the spirit of the god, was paraded through all parts of Shau Kei Wan. The population fasted on vegetarian food and a black dog was sacrificed at a certain spot.38\n\n(2) Sai Wan Ho ()\n\nAt the other, or western, end of Shau Kei Wan, the Sai Wan Ho sub-district, with a village of that name having 420 inhabitants at the 1901 census, was the nucleus of another religious grouping.3 This was centred on another earth god shrine which, though now in a new location, is credited with having existed beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitants. It was removed to its present site about 1949, when the present sub-divisional police station was built immediately behind the old shrine.\n\nThe group of local residents associated with the celebrations connected with this shrine do not hold their principal religious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209894, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "131\n\nobservances on the days usually associated with earth gods in the first and second lunar months. Even in the pre-war period, and as far back as memory and local tradition serve, the group celebrated the Yue Lan festival in the seventh moon. At this time each year, a committee of residents arranged for a religious service and a performance of puppets to be performed on some open ground near the former pier that served the Shau Kei Wan-Hung Hom-Hong Kong Central District ferry.\n\nThe traditional practice for providing the leadership for these occasions differed from that described for the Nam On Fong shrine. From at least 1920 and, it is understood locally, for longer still, each year's leaders have been decided mainly by financial considerations and mutual agreement. Whichever among the group of interested parties was willing to pay the highest amount became the Chung Lei for that year. Lots could be drawn in the event of a tie, or a disputed choice, but this very seldom happened; probably because the group was fairly constant in its composition, all were known to each other, and the chance came round every year.\n\nThe Chung Lei had assistants, as elsewhere. He usually selected his own, from among his friends in the body of subscribers. This was varied for practical considerations in the early post-war stage. There were then four assistants, besides the body of chik lei. It was the practice that if the leader came from the Sai Wan Ho shops, the first and third assistant had to come from among the body of chik lei associated with the Tai Koo docks and sugar refinery, the largest single employer of labour in Shau Kei Wan. Established in 1908 and 1884 respectively, their works and dockyard were located at the Sai Wan Ho end of the Shau Kei Wan area.40 In the late 1960s, if not earlier, the ceremonies were held in matsheds erected inside the dockyard.\n\nThe chik lei could be men or women, and come from any dialect group. However, they had to come from the Sai Wan Ho end of the Shau Kei Wan. The same geographical restriction was applied to canvassing for subscriptions. The managers sent out to raise funds among the shopkeepers and residents were not permitted to go beyond the traditional boundaries of the sub-district. In addition to those chik lei who used their personal", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209900, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "BUSINESS IDEOLOGY OF CHINESE INDUSTRIALISTS IN HONG KONG*\n\nWONG SIU-LUN\n\nDEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY\n\nUNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG\n\nChinese business ideology is largely an uncharted field. (For the handful of studies that exist, see Ryan 1961: 13-36; King and Leung 1975: 33-50; Olsen 1972; Bergere 1968). The dearth of systematic studies is undoubtedly a reflection of the weakness of the Chinese bourgeoisie. The structural supremacy of the polity in Chinese society has drawn scholarly attention mainly to the ideas and thoughts of political actors. But this neglect of business ideology also exists in other societies in various degrees. As Reinhard Bendix has observed (1959: 615)\n\n'The whole development of industrialization has been accompanied by an intellectual rejection of [managerial] ideologies as unworthy of consideration.'\n\nThis rejection is apparently based on the assumption that the 'real' motives and orientations of the bourgeoisie are already known. Marx and Engel's eloquent indictment of the bourgeois mentality has such a finality that it seems superfluous to investigate further (1967: 82)\n\n'The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his \"natural superiors\", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous \"cash payment\". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of\n\n* The research for this study was supported by a research grant from the Harvard-Yenching Institute. This paper is an outgrowth of my D.Phil. thesis, and I wish to thank Professor J.C. Mitchell, my supervisor, for his guidance. An earlier version has been presented in the seminar on \"Hong Kong: Its People, Traditions and Culture\" organized by the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong on 15th & 16th April, 1983.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209958, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "The white dews drop down on the fragrant but leafless trees; the sombre vapours rise up from the enchanted hills and valleys; and the zephyrs soften with their sweet breath the gloom that overshadows the earth.\n\nIt is now, while seated beneath the tented canopy of the proud ships provided for our reception, that I recall with tears the days that are past: I have left my very home; my heart grows cold; my robe flutters; I am as a man pierced with a dagger.\n\nI gaze upon yonder royal white city, on the high cliffs, while the shadows of evening gather round it. There it stands, lonely as a palace built upon a rock.\n\nThe sun has disappeared beneath the waves, but lingering eyes still turn to it with straining fondness. The southern stars that gleam upon its snow-white walls look beautiful and bright as glittering flowers.\n\nAnd now I weep with bitterness, and as I sink upon my pillow, the splendid town is present to me still. I behold even in my sleep the fragrant incense urn dispensing its thousand gushing streams [a footnote explains that Hong Kong in Chinese signifies ‘Urn of Fragrant Streams'] over the mountains, while the city's white abodes seem glittering in the morning sun.\n\nIt is thus I treasure in my sorrowing soul the loved remembrance; it is thus my mourning heart clings to departed happiness, as the tendrils twine themselves around you airy cliffs.\n\nThe scene is changed. The bright moon issues from the parting clouds, and spangles with her light the feathery bamboo and the shrubby jessamine, that overarch the islet's thousand habitations; and soon the silent morning sun starts from his golden sleep, and sheds a liquid lustre on the rocky steeps that bear aloft a thousand glittering and spacious mansions.\n\nYet on this spot erewhile were only to be seen the hovels of the roving fishermen. Where are they? gone like the swallows of departed autumn!\n\nThus I record in the above lines my uncontrollable regret when leaving your Empire and returning to Canton, on board", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209959, "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": 218, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "196\n\nthe vessel appointed to receive us, in the 10th month of the year Yeh-sze.\n\nLike Kong-heang my renown is small; like Lea-heang I have taught the classics, but profited little by the examples found in them. My attainments are slender, and I can only be compared to a ragged colt that has no real substance.\"\n\nIn view of Cree's mention of Charles Gutzlaff being on board the Vixen, and of the dearth of translators in Hong Kong at that time, it may be that the translation of the poem was made by Gutzlaff himself.\n\nNOTE\n\nThis is probably Liu Kai-yü (M), a native of Shun-Tien, Prefect of Canton (AHA) from 1843, or Liu Hsin (2), a native of Hsiang Fu, Honan, who succeeded him as Prefect of Canton in 1845 c.£. ƒƒƒ± (+M/2## Vol. 1), p. 405 (Note from Rev. C.T. Smith).\n\nRELICS OF HONG KONG AND CHINA IN BRITISH ARMY AND REGIMENTAL MUSEUMS\n\nP. BRUCE\n\nWhile in the United Kingdom in 1983 I visited a number of army museums in search of items related to China. There is, in fact, quite a lot to see, though the museums are scattered the length and breadth of the country and considerable travelling is involved. However, members of the society may like a brief note on what I was able to find and it would be interesting to hear of anything additional which is known of.\n\nI started at the Royal Marines Museum, at Southsea, Hampshire, which is, in effect, a part of Portsmouth. There is an interesting collection of China items here.\n\nThe oldest items are several assorted rifles and swords and an impressive Chinese cannon which looks as if it would have fired a shot about the size of a tennis ball. It is crafted to include a ferocious dragon's head at the muzzle from which the ball would roar forth. These were picked up in 1842.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209987, "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": 246, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "224\n\nbest titles there? To this last question the answer is certainly \"No\". Either I did not happen to pick up the best book on a particular subject when I was in search of a quotation or, and this was often the case, the best book turned out not to be very quotable. Some authors' styles do not lend themselves to excerpting, not because they are bad but because they are more cumulative than 'dashing'. I think it was Somerset Maugham who described one of his characters as the kind of man you wouldn't mind being marooned for years with but couldn't stand the prospect of one afternoon with. Quotable authors have to scintillate a little, but it doesn't mean that their whole books are good, and vice versa.\n\nNo, the list is also not a representative sample. Too much has been written on too many China topics to hope for that. So the answer to my first question must presumably be \"Not very good\". It is at best an \"interesting\" and \"fun\" list. Partly to redress it I appended a short list of 'Suggestions for Further Reading' to Ancestral Images Again. I could not presume to attempt a definitive list of the most important books on Chinese culture, and discerning readers will doubtless have spotted already that I have made little effort to cover the large realm of capital-C Culture, but let me add here some other important and useful books which I think ought to be on a general list:\n\nBodde, Derk and Morris, Clarence, Law in Imperial China, Harvard University Press, 1967.\n\nBuchanan, K. The Transformation of the Chinese Earth, London, 1970.\n\nBuck, Pearl S, The Good Earth, London, 1931.\n\nChang, K. C., (ed.), Food in Chinese Culture, New Haven, 1977.\n\nEndacott, G. B. and Birch, Alan, Hong Kong Eclipse, Hong Kong, 1978.\n\nFreedman, Maurice, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung, London, 1966.\n\nHawkes, David, The Story of the Stone, Penguin Books, 1973+ (series still in progress).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210008, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "245\n\nto be stirred up and shaken by the constant movement of the boats over several weeks or months until it became a smooth, thick, rich liquid. This would be sold to the richest farmers only: it was so highly regarded as fertiliser that a barrel of it had to be paid for by an equivalent volume of vegetables. It was diluted with water and used in much the same way as the matured urine.\n\nNight-soil from the city could also be bought, but it was less highly regarded; it was much rawer, and tended to be mixed with undesirable material such as broken crockery etc. To be of much use it needed mixing with ash or earth and drying on the latrine drying ground; this could be hired from the latrine owner if needed.\n\nAnother immensely valuable fertiliser available only to the richest farmers was the dry, powdery residue left behind after peanuts had been crushed for their oil. Most of the New Territories' larger market towns had oil shops, which bought peanuts from villages and pressed them in heavy hand-operated presses for resale of the resulting oil in the markets as cooking oil. The crushed shells and meat were of the very highest value as being immediately usable (no “rawness”), very rich, and dry; wealthy families would use this material as top dressing, or else pack it around seedlings. This material was used mostly on vegetables, where every grain could be placed in an advantageous position: it was rarely used for rice as being just too valuable to be used wholesale.\n\nThe scourings of fishponds, moats, and drainage canals were invariably spread out over surrounding fields, and not surprisingly as this rich mud was probably the single richest form of fertiliser easily available. Most went to the wealthier families which owned the fishponds, or which could afford to buy it from the owners.\n\nFinally, straw and grass were ploughed into the fields as appropriate; particularly after the second rice crop, since the winter sweet potato crop, which did not get the benefit of waterborne nutrients that the rice crops did, needed all the fertiliser it could get. The second rice crop was accordingly harvested high on the stalk, to leave as much straw behind for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210012, "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": 270, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "248\n\nagents of incense merchants and conveyed by land to Tsim Sha Tau (now Tsim Sha Tsui) whence it was transported by junks to Shek Pai Wan (now Aberdeen) and thence to mainland China, southeast Asia and places as far away as Arabia. Hence Shek Pai Wan was known as \"Incense Harbour\" or \"Heong Kong” the harbour of Incense or \"Heung\" produce, and the whole island eventually came to be known as \"Hong Kong”. \n\nThe cultivation and trade in \"Kuan-heung\" reached the height of its prosperity during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.). However, during the reign of Emperor K'ang Hsi (R) of the Ch'ing Dynasty (1662-1722 A.D.), the Manchus, as a preventive measure against counter attacks from Taiwan, where Cheng Shing-kung (*), a faithful vassal of the Ming Dynasty still held sway, adopted a \"scorched earth strategy\" by destroying everything within 50 Li (Chinese miles) of the coast, including incense trees, before the inhabitants were evacuated inland. Thus the industry suffered a stunning blow, and then, as the coastal areas were subsequently infested by pirates, its doom was finally sealed. \n\nThe \"Incense Tree\" (**, £*) is a medium-sized evergreen tree with a small compact crown. Leaves are oval in shape, about 6 cm long and 3 cm wide, with a pointed tip, and shiny on both surfaces. Flowers are small, scented yellowish-green, borne in clusters on the ends of the branch, and open in May. The fruit is a woody capsule, shaped like a compressed egg about 3 cm long, densely covered with short grey hairs and can be seen dangling from the branch tips when ripe. It is a rather slow-growing, insignificant tree whose presence in the open countryside is often masked by more vigorous plants. \n\nThe statement that it was introduced from North Vietnam must be questioned. Aquilaria sinensis is in fact a species indigenous throughout this region, and it may be found growing wild in many different places and at different altitudes in Hong Kong. The misunderstanding may have been caused by the reference to another incense-producing tree (Aquilaria agallocha) which was commonly grown in the western part of Kwangtung, and in Hainan Island, North Vietnam and Thailand. \n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210063, "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "13\n\n \n+ + +\n\n \naway some at will; the remaining ones were counted to see whether they were even or odd. To avoid making a mistake, they were arranged by twos, each pair in the shape of a cross. If at the end one cross remained (an even number), the result was a bad indication, hsiung (†4: 2 sticks inside a container); if only one stick remained, it was a good omen, chỉ (l'¡ : the top shows 3 sticks, which is clearer than just one; the bottom shows a ‘mouth', probably replacing an older writing of a container)”*\n\n \nThis originally very simple technique, in which only 2 kinds of answers were obtained, “yes” and “no”, developed into more complex forms: perhaps the question was repeated several times (cp. the present-day \"moon-block\" divination) and the results written above each other. In that case, an even number was expressed by two short lines written in a horizontal way: - - It had nothing to do with yin or a ‘broken line'. An odd number was expressed by just one line. The Iching philosophy started from the trigrams: at one time the eight different answers obtained by repeating the oracle three times were interpreted in a cosmological way. That left the door open for further speculation and resulted in the 64 hexagrams. At this stage, numerology lost its meaning. The only trace of the older method of counting sticks in a container is found in the use of 50 yarrow stalks: they are still counted, but merely to obtain one of the 64 hexagrams, not any longer to find a positive or a negative answer to one's question.\n\n \nThere are many other ways of using a number of dried stalks in divination: several methods are found in China as well as in other cultures, and it is not certain that the old milfoil method has always been a uniform technique. One other hypothesis is that a number of sticks were thrown at random on the ground and the diviners would draw interpretations from the configurations obtained. This is suggested by the definition of “geomancy” as given in Webster's dictionary: “a kind of divination by figures or lines formed by a handful of earth cast on the ground, or by dots or points drawn at random.””\n\n \nOne can clearly see how lines can be obtained by throwing a handful of stalks. To go even one step further: one can find a strong similarity and perhaps a historical link between oracle bone", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210071, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "21\n\nTable 1: Registered Temples in Taichung City\n\n(112 temples with 115 oracles)\n\n \n \n B-1\n B-2\n B-6\n B-9\n Not Avail.\n Other\n Total\n \n \n (Confucian)\n \n \n \n \n 1\n \n 1\n \n \n Taoist\n 43\n 15\n \n 11\n \n \n 69\n \n \n Buddhist\n 14\n 6\n 6\n \n 18\n \n 44\n \n \n \n 57\n 21\n 6\n 11\n 19\n 1\n 115\n \n\noccasionally the temple management was unwilling to oblige. The other \"not available\" temples are the ones where no oracles are being used: six are of Buddhist affiliation; two are folk religion temples, but closely related to the state cult, and therefore, as in the case of the Confucius temple, no oracles are used; one is an earth-spirit shrine, (T’u-ti-kung miao) not using any oracles; in ten Buddhist temples no oracle samples could be obtained, because the personnel were unwilling to give them out; two other temples were not visited: one was a Buddhist monastery; the other, an earth-spirit shrine which do not always carry oracles.\n\nFinally two temples presumably have B-2 oracles, but are not included in the results. Five temples, one Buddhist and four Taoist, had been moved to other locations, mostly because of urbanization but sometimes because a larger building was needed and the original site was not spacious enough.\n\nThe above Table 1 clearly indicates that the temples in Taichung show very little diversity: among the 85 temples where oracles were found, 67% use the B-1 type (“Matsu\" oracle); 24.7% use the B-2 type (\"Kuan Ti\" oracle), while only 7%, all of Buddhist affiliation, use the B-6 type (\"Kuan Yin\" oracle). The only other type is unique in the city: the B-9 type. It is a variety of oracles found in temples dedicated to the legendary deified doctor, Pao-sheng Ta-ti; other varieties of this god's oracles were spotted out-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210094, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "44\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\n6. Hou-wang ling-ch'ien 14, published by Tsui-ching tang f**, Canton, n.d. (block print edition; 64 oracles).\n\n7. Pei-ti ling-chien w, published by Wu-kui t'ang in Canton, n.d. (block print; 50 oracles, identical with above Shang-ti ling-ch'ien).\n\n(iv) Oracles reproduced in the Tao-tsang\n\n1.\n\n2.\n\n3.\n\n4.\n\n5.\n\n6.\n\n✯ (−TT), 1977 Taipei reprint. Szu-sheng chen-chin ling-ch'ien 145, vol. 54, pp. 44056-44080, TT. 1298 (1 scroll; 49 oracles).\n\nHsian-chen ling-ying pao-ch'ien KERAK, vol. 54, pp. 44081-44137, TT. 1299 (3 scrolls; 365 oracles, divided over 12 daily hours each of which has 30 slips, i.e. 360 plus one slip for each of the five agents).\n\nTa-tz'u hao sheng chiu-t'ien wei-fang Sheng-mu yilan-chun ling-ying pao-ch'ien KkP;AMP@!#MEW, vol. 54, pp. 44138-44150, TT. 1300 (1 scroll; 99 oracles).\n\nHung-en ling-chi chen-chân ling chien light hi. Vol. 54, pp. 44150-44154, TT. 1301 (1 scroll; 53 oracles).\n\nLing-chi chen-chün chu-sheng ling ch’ien OBZIRAR, vol. 54, pp. 44155-44159, TT. 1302 (1 scroll; 64 oracles).\n\nFu-t'ien kuang-sheng ru-i ling-ch'ien KQE✯, vol. 54, pp. 44160-44190, TT. 1303 (1 scroll; 120 oracles).\n\n7. B-2 Hu-kuo chia-chi chiang-tung-wang ling-ch'ien ARMORIA, vol. 54, pp. 44193-44213, TT. 1305 (1 scroll; 100 oracles).\n\n8. Hsuan-t'ien Shang-ti kan-ying ling-ch'ien K, vol. 60, pp. 48479-48506 (49 oracles).\n\n(v) 1. Sham Francis, Trans., Kwun Yum Fortune Slip Predictions. Hong Kong: Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, Board of Directors, 1983. (This set corresponds with the Kuan Yin set found in Lukang; B-11 and -12).\n\n2. Sham Francis, Trans., Predictions of Wong Tai Sin. Hong Kong: Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, Board of Directors, 1984. Chai, Tung-yeh # !f, \"Ling-chien malo-chii” NUE.\n\n3. Heaven-Earth-man Journal Ke (published in Taichung, Taiwan), no. 1 (1968), 117-147.\n\nB. Studies\n\n1. BAUER, Wolfgang, China and the Search for Happiness. Recurring Themes in Four Thousand Years of Chinese Cultural History. (Translated from the German by Michael Shaw.) New York: The Seabury Press, 1976 (German Ed.: 1971)\n\n2. EBERHARD, Wolfram, \"Oracle and Theater in China\", pp. 191-199, Studies in Chinese Folklore and Related Essays, The Hague: Mouton, 1970.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210283, "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": 254, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "Date \n\nAug 31 \n\nTime \n\nAnnounced Programme \n\n22:00 \n\nSept. 1 \n\n7:00 \n\nmorning lesson and \n\nKaiko\" WANA \n\nTable 1. Time Table \n\npre-offering 前传施戰鬼 \n\nObserved Programme \n\nInviting the gods \n\nnight ritual \n\npre-offering \n\nmorning ritual 1 \n\nmorning ritual 2 \n\nTime \n\n15:00 \n\n20:00-20:45 \n\n22:00-22:40 \n\n7:00- 7:20 \n\n10:00-10:30 \n\n15:00 \n\nafternoon Kaiko \n\n15:00-15:50 \n\nand Reporting NAJLA \n\nritual and prayer for \n\nreincarnation \n\n15:50-16:10 \n\nReporting \n\n18:00 \n\nnight lesson and \n\n20:00-20:45 \n\nnight ritual \n\nrepentance 晚課拜懺 \n\n20:00-22:00 \n\nmovie \n\n22:00 \n\nthe great offering 大拖能鬼 \n\n10:10-11:00 \n\nthe great offering \n\nSept. 2 \n\n7:00 \n\nmorning lesson and \n\n7:00-7:20 \n\nmorning ritual \n\n[ \n\nkaiko朝課间间 \n\n10:00-10:25 \n\nmorning ritual 2 \n\n15:00 \n\nafternoon kaiko, FEMA \n\n15:00-16:15 \n\nLantern floating \n\nReporting and lÆSLA \n\n16:20-16:40 \n\nReporting \n\nLantern floating \n\n18:00 \n\nnight lesson and \n\n20:00-20.45 \n\nnight ordinance and \n\nrepentance 晚課拜懺 \n\nrepentance \n\n22:00 \n\nthe great offering R \n\n20:00-22:00 \n\n22:10-23:00 \n\nmovie \n\nthe great offering \n\nSept. 3 \n\n7:00 \n\nmorning lesson and \n\n7:00- 7:20 \n\nmorning ritual 1 \n\nkaiko悯課川河 \n\n10:00-10:20 \n\nmorning ritual 2 \n\n15:00 \n\nafternoon kaiko and Reporting \n\n14:30-15:00 \n\nFOR \n\nFRASILA \n\n15:00-15:15 \n\nafternoon reincarnation \n\nReporting \n\n18:00 \n\nnight lesson and \n\n20:00-21:00 \n\nnight repentance \n\nrepentance # \n\n20:00-21:45 \n\n22:00 \n\nthe great offering AAMUE \n\n22:00-23:55 \n\nSept. 4 \n\n0:00- 0:40 \n\n7:00 \n\nLate Kaiko \n\nH \n\n10:50-11:05 \n\n11:10-11:15 \n\nmovie \n\nthe great offering \n\nBurning \n\nThank the Temple Gods \n\nThank Heaven \n\n11:20-11:25 \n\n15:00 \n\n* = in Japanese, means reincarnation through praying \n\nOffering to the late \n\nand handicapped ghosts. Feast. \n\n+ \n\nIL. \n\nthe prayer book for the offerings is 瑜伽燄口科怆 reincarnation it is A LAKE \n\n233 \n\nfor the ritual and \n\nAccording to the priests, the morning and night rituals are their normal daily rituals in the temple ( Wat ), only the 'Offering', the 'Reporting', the 'Lantern Floating', and the three rituals on the last day were performed specially for the Festival. During the night rituals, after reciting charms and presenting in- \n\ncense sticks to the altar of Heaven-and-Earth (T’ien Di T'an AM), all the priests, except one who kept on striking a drum 天地壇 \n\nin the Tao Ch'ang area, walked through the whole festival area. At the same time, the main priest bowed to every object of worship.\" \n\nAfter returning to the Tao Ch'ang area and purifying a small dish", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210290, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "240\n\nCHOI CHI CHEUNG\n\nburnt and vegetarian food was offered by many worshippers there.\n\nAt the entrance of the Tao Ch'ang, 4 notices stated: \"The water and land cross-over is at this Tao Ch'ang ()\" separating the Tao Ch'ang area from the other areas. Within the area, there were 39 worshipping objects. There were three distinct areas to the Tao Ch'ang: i) On one side of the entrance, there were the territorial gods of the human world, and, on the other side of the entrance, there was a god who holds the key to the door between earth and hell (two of his runners were with him). ii) In the main hall, there were tablets of different spirits who were supposed to come from the ten courts of the underworld, and tablets of the Taoist Saints. Two Generals were put in the centre of the hall to watch over the spirits. iii) At the back of the area, was the altar (or Hoza in Japanese) where the priests practised their rituals under the images of the 3 Buddhas and the Goddess of Mercy. Compared with the typical Buddhist arrangement for rituals for appeasing the dead, the Tao Ch'ang area of the Kobe Chinese 'Yue Lan' was more inclusive and closer to Chinese folk tradition, though the priests were all Buddhists.\n\n32\n\nThere were 7 types of objects worshipped (Table in the Appendix):\n\ni) Those represented by incense bowls and offerings only.\n\nii) Paper-made figures.\n\niii) Paper-made lanterns.\n\niv) Porcelain statues.\n\nv) Paper-made houses.\n\nvi) Paper-made tablets.\n\nvii) Paintings.\n\nNot all worshippers knew the names and roles of all the objects worshipped. During the festival, worshippers presented incense sticks to all the objects of worship in the festival area. However, besides the Ming-che and the \"Ancestral Hall\", the two runners attracted the most attention from the worshippers. Worshippers bribed them with bundles of paper money. One Cantonese lady of about 75 years old explained that by doing so, it was hoped that the runners \"would take care of our ancestors whose spirits are com-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210292, "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": 263, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "242\n\nCHOI CHI CHEUNG\n\nnese News (MA###); reports about the Ghost Festival in Kobe no longer emphasised the role of the Hokkienese. Thus, the secondary identification (identity of being a Chinese and/or of being a resident in Kobe) instead of the primary identification (identity of blood relation and/or of origins) became the central idea of the Festival. Thus the Festival is more inclusive now.\" The Festival, though including all elements of the secular world as well as the sacred world, stressed only ancestor-worship because only ancestor worship supercedes the boundaries of all social groupings and categories, eases the tension of group competition among the Chinese, and connects all social groupings and categories into one worshipping group which is based primarily on the relationship of the worshippers with Kobe, and secondarily on their territorial identity as Chinese.\n\nNOTES:\n\nThe original meaning of 'Yue Lan' is \"hanging upside down” (of the hungry ghost in Hell). However, during the festival, participants used terms like: Obon (Mah, Japanese term for the festival), Chung Yuan (†, middle of the year, which is a term mainly used by the taoists for the same event), and/or Kuai Chie (m, ghost festival). Some Cantonese even called it a Chiao (M) (simply meaning a festival dedicated to the Gods). Moreover, the documents used during the festival spoke of it as 'Pu Tu' (#), meaning general offering and place where spirits can cross over to this world, e.g. the papers that hung over the entrance of the Tao Ch'ang (entrance A) wrote \"The water and earth Pu Tu is held in this Tao Ch'ang' (*), at the entrance B, it was written 'the Great Occasion of Pu Tu' (E), the invitation card wrote \"the great meeting of Pu Tu' (#★#), and the same term was also used in the P'ang.\n\n1 See Kobe Kakyou Ho (#), no. 71, 1976.3.10. In 1974, there were 46944 Chinese in Japan. 8585 of them lived in Hyogo Prefecture of which 7071 were concentrated in Kobe city. The distribution of the origins of the Chinese in Hyogo Prefecture was as follow: Taiwan (41%), Cantonese (21%), Hokkien (11%), Kiangsu (11%), Shantong (5%), Chekiang (4%), others (7%).\n\nSee plan at the Appendix to this paper, and Plate 15.\n\nPlate 16.\n\n3 Plates 17, 18, 19.\n\n6\n\nSometimes informants called the paper-made houses \"Cho' () without distinguishing between the house for the 'Newly Dead', and that for the gods. Here, Ming-che is used for the house of the \"Newly Dead', and Cho for that of the gods.\n\n7 Plate 20.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210293, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "243\n\nThe content of the invitation card is: \"The overseas Chinese in Japan will hold a 3-days-4-nights Pu Tu, for the sake of establishing luck by offering and helping all the imprisoned spirits of the water and the earth. The meeting will take place at the Kwan T'i Temple in Kobe city. Please come to the \"Tan\" (altar) to present incense sticks during the 14th, 15th, and 16th of the 7th moon. (1st, 2nd and 3rd of September 1982).” The card was red in colour.\n\n9\n\nThe 13th day and the 17th day of the 7th moon were not mentioned in the invitation card.\n\n10 The Lantern Floating ritual in Japanese is \"To Ro Nagashi', which means to float lanterns(s) (to the sea). During the Japanese Obon, lanterns are sent off on the last day of the festival. Through this, the ghosts and the ancestors are all sent back. During the Kobe festival, the ritual, according to the committee members, was to send off the \"wandering ghosts or those who are not worshipped by anyone (= Mu Zhi Kuai)\". However it seems confusing because after the floating ritual, they continued to give offering to the hungry ghosts as well as to the ancestors for two more nights, and the tablets of the wandering spirits were still inside the Tao Ch'ang. A similar ritual practised in Hong Kong during the Chiao festival is called 'Fong Shui Dang' (t, sending off the water lanterns), which is parallel with the 'Fong Luk Dang\" (PW10, put on the street lights) ritual. The rituals are to invite all the water and earth spirits to attend the offering during the Pu Tu or 'Sai Tai Yau* (*9A, to worship the numerous spirits) of the Chiao festival). The prayer book the Obaku Buddhists used for their morning and night rituals is \"Obaku Zenlin Choobo Kashoo\" (R). The priests called this daily work \"Zenlin Kashoo\" (M).\n\nSee below.\n\n12\n\nPlate 21.\n\n13\n\nPlates 22, 23.\n\n14 The \"Pang' was a book-form name-list in yellow. It had 8 pages with an introduction explaining the reason for holding a Pu Tu. (The introduction is printed in the Appendix).\n\n15 See the introduction to the Pang printed in the Appendix.\n\n16 The beach is at the western end of the Prefecture.\n\n17 Plate 24.\n\n18\n\nSee footnote 10.\n\n19\n\n20\n\nPlate 25.\n\nThe book used for the ritual was \"Yoga Enkoo Kahan\" (1⁄2μÅμ) which is similar to that used in Hong Kong during the 'Sai Tai Yau' ritual. According to an old taoist in Hong Kong, Mr. Lam Pui ( ), the gesture is called \"Poh Yuk” (Z, to break Hell), and through this the ghosts are released and able to come for reincarnation and cross over.\n\n21 Plates 26, 27, 28.\n\n22\n\nNo meat was allowed in the festival area. However, meat was presented at the Ming-che VII. One informant explained that it was because the dead like meat, and one committee member sighed and told me that \"We have no way, because they are from the other Provinces (of China) (##A)\".\n\n20 The sect started from Monk Yin Yuan (C) of Fu-ch'in (Mili), Hokkien. He was invited by the General of the Tokugawa Bankufu (UK) in 1654, In the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210339, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "289\n\nHere we have a practical proof that religion has no longer any fear of science. We see a Roman Catholic clergyman about to lecture on what was once considered the dangerous science of geology, and I am surprised we have not the Bishop ready to applaud him, but I am sure it must be owing to some accident that my friend Bishop Raimondi is not here today. (applause) In the sixteenth century, as we all know, the great astronomer Galileo was persecuted because he contended that the earth goes round the sun, and until quite lately geology was considered a more irreligious science than astronomy. This feeling was not confined to the Church of Rome. At the end of the last century an eminent Bishop of the Church of England ridiculed the pretensions of geologists — and we know that ridicule is often a more dangerous weapon than hatred; . . . by saying that for a man crawling on the face of the earth to pretend that he knew what was going on in the interior of our planet was like a gnat on the shoulder of an elephant pretending that it knew what was going on in the bowels of the huge animal. (laughter) But behold what progress! Here we have Mr. Woods, at the end of the nineteenth century, about to tell us living in Hong Kong what is going on in the bowels of the Malay Peninsula. (applause)\n\nDuring this visit, some time before 9 February, Woods managed to visit Canton for five days. There he met the British vice-Consul, Dr. H. F. Hance, with whom he shared an interest in botany, and membership of the Linnaean Society. He cited Hance's work in his own publications. When Woods returned to Hong Kong, he wrote to a friend in Australia:\n\nI had a little trouble in getting off to Canton. The war has upset everything, and the C. River is full of sunken ships and torpedoes, so that a special pilot is wanted to take one up, and he has to be obtained from the Chinese gunboats. However, I got up there and spent five days most pleasantly. I got all about the city without molestation except from the curiosity of the passers-by and the importunity of the beggars. My time went all the more pleasantly, as the Vice-consul is Dr. Hance F.L.S., the greatest authority we have on Chinese botany. He has a splendid herbarium and when tired of sightseeing in the city I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210418, "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": 25, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "6\n\nBARTHOLOMEW P.M. TSUI\n\nSupreme Deity is most emphatically affirmed, and the basis of affirmation is the Patriarch's personal experience and communication with Him. One can experience the Supreme Deity because He has \"signs\" (hsiang). Yet, being transcendent, He is without form. That is why Lo says, \"God is formless but manifests himself in signs.\"19 Patriarch Lo is very much aware of the transcendent nature of the Supreme Deity. Words applicable to limited beings like existence, form, name, nature, desire, activity, like or dislike, speech, quantity are all inapplicable to Him.20 In this respect, Lo's struggle with a theological language is not unlike Lao Tzu's pithy pronouncements on the Being and Non-Being (yu, wu), or Medieval scholars' formulation of analogy or the Mutazilites' discussion of the names of Allah. In spite of the inadequacy of language when talking about the Supreme Deity, He is worthy of veneration and praise and the worshipper's sentiment overrules philosophical difficulties. A hymn of praise forms the very first passage of Lo's most important book, the T'ai-hsüan's Discourse on the Truth. \"(Oh Thou art) the most great and most venerable! Thou art the God above all gods, the origin of myriad beings. Thou art timeless, beginningless, endless. In Thee there is no mark of destination, no quantity, no form, or name. Thou art present everywhere and there is nothing Thou canst not do. With Thy assistance the heavens become pure, the earth obtains peace, the sun and moon become bright, gods and men become spiritual, the great way is born, the Universe becomes established. Oh, Thou art great and holy, the most great and most venerable! Thy honour is supreme. Thou art so great that no name is adequate.”21\n\nPatriarch Lo contrasts the Supreme Deity with other spirits and ghosts by saying that the former is the origin of myriad beings,22 whereas the other gods are merely certain spiritual essences of the Universe. In other words, he recognizes the vast difference between the Supreme Deity and other gods in Chinese popular religion. The latter exist but ought not to become the objects of worship. That is why in his sect, the Supreme Deity alone is the object of veneration. Such a state of affair is reflected in this sect's shrine. Only the character “shen” (神) or the text I have just quoted appears on the wall directly behind and above the altar. No images or name-tablets of other gods are allowed on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210420, "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": 27, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "8\n\niv. Cultivation\n\n32\n\nBARTHOLOMEW P.M. TSUI\n\nThe return to the Supreme Deity demands moral development and cultivation. Moral development is required because only a good person may become united to the Supreme Deity and because it is the pre-requisite for cultivation. \"The way to cultivate the person is to first practice the superior morality and the abolition of evil inclinations.\"29 More about morality will be discussed in the next section. Cultivation is necessary because only a recollected person is in tune with the cosmos and is receptive of the truth. On the subject of quiet-sitting, Lo says, \"When the mind is nurtured and the spirit recollected, one may form a ternion with heaven and earth and be in communication with the Supreme Deity.\"30 On the one hand, Patriarch Lo is convinced that man's destiny lies in his own hands. \"Whether one becomes a god or a demon depends entirely on one's own making. Heaven has nothing to do with it.\"31 In another place, Lo affirms his belief in the moral law of cause and effect (karma, 報應 ).32 On the other hand, Lo appears to think that knowledge about the Supreme Deity can only be obtained by revelation. \"My opinion is that only by obtaining the Tao or by witnessing God's revelation can a person know a few things about God.\"33 This dual approach to cultivation is seen in another passage. \"The most important thing in mental cultivation is devotion to the Supreme Deity. May He always be present in your heart. Adore Him in the morning and in the evening. Always be ready to accept his spiritual light. In the practice of cultivation, the communication between heaven and men, and their mutual relationship are the supreme methods. Next in importance is quiet-sitting. In the way of quiet-sitting, ... this practice will always bring results. These two should be employed together. They assist each other and bring one to the Tao.\" Patriarch Lo's programme of cultivation contains a paradox: on the one hand, knowledge about the Supreme Deity depends on gratuitous revelation; on the other, man's destiny lies entirely in his own hands. This is the timeless theological problem of grace and free will. The maintenance within this theological system of a paradox at this point rather than attempt a more intellectual solution may indicate that Patriarch Lo's\n\n+ + +", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210421, "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": 28, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "religious thought never progressed beyond his initial experiential phase.\n\nV. Morality\n\nPatriarch Lo allocated a lot of space to the discussion of morality. In both T'ai-hsüan's Discourse on the Truth and T'ai-hsüan's Discourse of Various Topics he listed twenty-six virtues that one should develop and twenty-five vices that one should avoid. They are all concerned with social relationships. In fact, they are hardly distinguishable from Confucian morality. Even the same terms like jen (仁), i (義), hsiao (孝), chung (忠), hsin (信) and others are used. The slight bit of difference comes only in his discussion of internal and external virtues. (Midiya) 35 \"The internal aspect of virtue is called Simplicity (素) or Truth (真); the external aspect is called Benevolence (仁) or Righteousness (義).\" I believe this is an attempt to harmonize Taoist concepts with Confucian ones.\n\nThe Patriarch thought that social morality is continuous with cultivation. Virtue in its ultimate effect is indistinguishable from the goal of cultivation. In answer to the question about the highest virtue (德) he says, \"The highest virtue is to preserve the Truth and to bring human nature to its completion so that one is in harmony with heaven and earth; and to save the world and give assistance to the people so that one attains the virtue which enables one to be in communication with the gods.\" 36\n\nIV. Religious Institutions and Practices\n\nTan Tse Tao is not only a body of abstract religious thought. It is also a community of believers, and a community must have a boundary which separates it from the larger family of human beings. The institutions which make up this boundary are few but they do provide a distinct identity.\n\nFirst, the community is governed hierarchically. At the top of this hierarchy was Patriarch Lo. Below him were four Elders of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210435, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "23\n\nChristians or Eurasians. He expressed the opinion that such groups had given up their heritage; he himself was an ardent Confucian and promoted the building of the Confucian Hall in Sookunpoo. He sarcastically added that “as people had already been admitted into the European paradise on earth, he thought it was scarcely fair to debar them from using the passage to the European paradise in heaven”. (The Weekly Press, 17 April 1909)\n\nThe Hong Kong Telegraph took up the cause; Lau Chu-pak was one of its owners. Following the April meeting of the Sanitary Board in which Mr. Lau had expressed the opinions given above, it ran an editorial entitled “More Class Legislation in Hongkong”. The editorial linked the cemetery question with what the paper regarded as a growing movement towards the enactment of class legislation. \"The fact of the matter is that this sort of petty municipal legislation is all of a piece with the policy of the Government in reserving special lands for the bon ton of the Colony. First, they decreed that in life the Chinese should not live in the vicinity of the Peak, and now in death the Chinese are not deemed fitting occupants of lairs in the public cemetery.” The editor asked for consideration for the Chinese who were seeking a better deal for their dead: “Fancy the outcry there would be among the elite if the remains of the deceased predecessors were subjected to removal at the whim and caprice of some insignificant official in a Government Department. That in itself should constitute a plea for the Chinese that they have a right of interment in the Colonial Cemetery.\" Indeed, “the Colonial or Protestant, or whatever fancy name anybody might wish to call it, the public cemetery of Hong Kong is maintained out of the rates and taxes provided by the residents in the Colony. It is no more a private institution than the public gardens. No sect or body has a right to say that it has any particular claim on the domain; as far as we can make out, all have an equal right to interment”.\n\nThe Christian Cemetery Ordinance of 1909\n\nThe Government decided to draft legislation which would create separate sections in the cemetery where only those", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "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": 210444, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "32\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nThere was also an illicit still for making rice spirits, owned by the last mentioned. Beyond the village on the narrowest part of the strait were three stone sheds known as “fish huts”, and used by three separate fisher families for storing nets, fish baskets and other items of gear. Across the other side of the strait, on the second island, were a couple of concrete pits, used as tanks for dyeing sails and nets, and a wooden steaming vat. These were the property of the \"headman\".\n\nMost of Hong Kong's shoreline is steep and rocky. Kau Sai island is no exception. The village is built on one of the few stretches that offer a small ledge above high water mark. It is about thirty yards in width in most places. In front of the temple, south-eastwards from there, and at another point about half-a-mile beyond the northern end of the village, land has been reclaimed from the sea. The fishermen state that this process was started by their forebears. In 1950 the reclamations consisted of accumulations of large boulders carefully arranged to afford as flat a surface as possible. In front of the temple the reclaimed area formed a large semi-circular platform about fifty yards in diameter, raised about six or seven feet above the natural beach and contained by a sea wall, like a ha-ha. Both wall and platform had been sealed with concrete some time before the Japanese occupation. On the southern edge of the platform, near but just beyond the temple, lay the village well. The water, being somewhat brackish, was used mainly for washing. Sweet water was fetched by boat from a never-failing stream about a mile away to the north.\n\nFrom the temple southwards a little beyond the end of the village the reclamation had been filled in with beaten earth to make a broad path. Beyond that, flanking both sides of the strait, there were simply two wide stretches of carefully gathered boulders. These parts of the reclamation were still being added to. The same was true of the essentially similar boulder reclamation north of the village.\n\nThe existence of flat or flattish areas near the water's edge was a necessity for the fishermen who used them for net and fish drying, sail making, rope twisting and so on. Nets being at that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210463, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "51\n\ndwellers' Earth Spirit who was honoured in the same way ashore). On land the previous evening's activities would be repeated, the baths taken, the doors finally closed for sleep. The liners would have mostly returned, and they too would settle down to sleep; so would the crews of the collecting boats which in the days before mechanisation used sometimes to call in the evenings ready to pick up fish from the purse-seiners returning again next morning.\n\nSo it went on, round and round: the daily rhythm of production, consumption, education, recreation and ritual, enlivened by the excitements of fishing and the interests of gambling, gossip and children, and, every now and again, too, by the recurring items in the patterns of the larger rhythms of living: monthly, seasonal, annual and personal.\n\nWeekly and Monthly Rhythms\n\nKau Sai used the ordinary modern Chinese seven-day week for reckoning, and fishermen found it necessary to adjust their business to the British weekend which curtailed the activities of the officially controlled Fish Marketing Organisation on Sundays. Otherwise the week as such did not appear to have any particular significance for them. The street markets and shops they patronised had no closing days.\n\nMonthly patterns were more important. The months were always reckoned according to the Chinese lunar calendar (‘the old calendar'); adjustment when necessary to the western one ('the new calendar') being made very simple by the local custom of printing calendar and diaries with both dates. The first and fifteenth days of each lunar month were marked by slightly more elaborate performances of the daily worship at the boats' prows and the houses' Earth Shrines, before the ancestral shrines and in the temple.\n\nWhen I first went to Kau Sai it was usual for every boat to be careened at least once a month, and twice in the summer. Careening was most conveniently done where deep water over a sandy bottom dried out at low tide. One of the attractions of Kau", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210465, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "53\n\nexpected, at least in the days before mechanisation.\n\nSeasonal activities were, of course, closely affected also by the weather. From the local fishermen's point of view, this had three major aspects: wind, rainfall, and the occurrence of tropical storms. Hong Kong, lying just within the Tropic of Cancer, has well-marked seasonal variations in wind direction, temperature, and rainfall. Generally speaking, the winter months are cold and damp, the spring foggy, the summer hot and very humid, and the autumn warm and dry. Both the NW winds of the winter and the SE winds of the summer monsoons could be utilised by fishermen even in days of sail, but the SE monsoon period has one vital peculiarity: it is the typhoon season. Though relatively rarely directly in the path of a typhoon, Hong Kong is affected by the proximity of about ten tropical storms every summer. The exact course of a typhoon being unpredictable, this means that there is a period of several days' uncertainty each time, during which winds of up to 80 m.p.h. may be experienced, with extremely high precipitation. The effects on the water-dwelling population can be imagined.\n\nKau Sai, facing slightly east of south, was totally unsafe in a typhoon. At the first hint of bad weather from the southeast in the summer, the junks would up anchor and make for Sai Kung on the mainland, where the harbour was more sheltered.24\n\nAnnual Rhythms\n\nAs in most other parts of the world, the annual rhythm of life in Kau Sai was marked out by the pattern of annually recurring ritual. Most of the rituals observed by the fishermen were common to non-Christian and non-Westernised Hong Kong Chinese, but there were certain omissions and some differences in content and emphasis. I have already mentioned the substitution of the Spirit of the Prow (suen tau kung) for the landsmen's Spirit of the Earth (tai tze). At New Year, worship was offered to Heaven and the Waters (tin shui) rather than Heaven and Earth (tin tei). There was a complete absence of any lineage ritual. Also, at New Year (or after a birth or death on board, or at any time of bad fortune), many a fisherman on one of his visits to town", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210536, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "124\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\ncapacity to generalize from a body of work notable alike for the sophistication of its methodology and the sheer quantity of data unearthed.\" Nevertheless, used with appropriate caution, the issues raised and methods employed by these anthropologists may still provide the bridge that we so badly need to pass from recapitulation of the forms of Roman institutions to critical analysis of their contents. The balance of this paper will elaborate on this point by focussing on a component central to both systems, namely the cult of the dead.22\n\nThe afterlife in ancient Rome\n\nWhile death is an inescapable part of the human condition, the attitude of the living toward death and the deceased is a cultural response subject to considerable variation. Happily, at both of these focal points the Roman and Chinese response is capable of precise definition.\n\nAs the inscriptions briefly invoked at the outset of this paper make clear, some Romans firmly maintained that death did indeed mark the end of all things. The quantity of literary, epigraphic and archaeological material endorsing the concept of a continuing existence after death is far more impressive, however, and it is quite clear that in all periods the overwhelming majority of Romans subscribed to this view. In addition, it should be remarked that this same body of evidence makes it no less clear that, while this continuing existence was spiritual, it was typically associated not with the ghostly underworld of Greek myth or the celestial realm of certain of the philosophic sects, but with the grave in which the ashes or remains were interred. Hence Trimalchio's remark, in Petronius' Satyricon that \"it is assuredly wrong to embellish the houses in which we live, and not to trouble about those which we must inhabit for a far longer time.\"23 The Latin term which Petronius uses is domus, and sepulchral inscriptions also routinely describe the tomb as one's domus aeterna, or eternal home.24 It is this which explains the appearance of the stock phrase sit tibi terra levis \"may the earth rest lightly upon you\" on so many tombstones,\" and it is similarly the rationale for the many epitaphs which petition, threaten, or even attempt to engage the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210540, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "128\n\n'JOHN KARL EVANS\n\ndescends to the underworld, where a series of terrible punishments depicted on the scrolls that Taoist priests bring to funerals awaits the person adjudged guilty of such serious crimes as murder, theft, and unfilial behavior; a second takes up permanent residence in the ancestral tablet, and a third at the grave.35 In her recent field work in the Taiwanese village of Ch'i-nan, Emily Ahern discovered much the same thing, which reminds us that, at least in Taiwan and the New Territories, the ancient beliefs persist even in the face of rapid industrialization and contact with the outside world.\"\n\nUnlike the Romans, the Chinese rarely deify the spirits of their deceased; nevertheless, the latter demand and receive the same attention as their Roman counterparts. The details of the funerary ceremony vary, of course, from one locality to the next, but what occurs in Ch'i-nan may be taken as representative, particularly with regard to the vision of the afterlife that supports the entire ritual. Here, as elsewhere, the living initially intercede for the dead on the evening of the funeral itself, at an elaborate Taoist ceremony called the kung-te. In the course of this ritual, the earth god t'u-ti-kung is bribed to assist the deceased across the treacherous bridge leading to the underworld, and the drama closes with the burning of a great pile of mock paper money, which the soul needs to purchase food and protection. Seven days later, a prolonged transition period begins with the first in a series of seven offerings, spaced at weekly intervals. These consist in part of food, but also include paper replicas of an imposing array of luxuries and necessities, ranging from a house, car, and servants to televisions, an electric rice pot, and lawn furniture. Somewhere during these 49 days, at the moment which a professional geomancer deems most propitious, the new spirit is formally installed in this otherworldly domain. The transition period comes to a formal conclusion when the paper house and the other amenities are finally consigned to the flames and thereby transferred to the underworld.38\n\nThe sole purpose of this elaborate ceremonial is to ensure the comfort and well-being of the deceased, and it is obvious that this takes a purely materialistic form. It naturally follows, therefore, that additional offerings of paper money and food will", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210740, "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-1986", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "74\n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU\n\nrecords to indicate that the Botanic Gardens were preserved as had been the case at Singapore where a senior Japanese officer took over the role of Director and where botanical research continued throughout the occupation.\n\nFollowing the surrender of the Japanese military administration a rapid rehabilitation scheme was established whereby rubbish was removed from the garden site and serious attempts were made to re-establish the garden to its former appearance. In 1946 the internal restructuring of various Hong Kong Government departments resulted in the division of the original Botanical and Forestry departments into a Forestry Department and a separate Gardens Department.\n\nAt this stage there was no superintendent with overall supervision of the gardens but in 1947 Fr. T.F. Ryan, S.J. was appointed Acting Superintendent. He reported to Government in that year that:\n\n\"Returfing had to be done on a large scale, so as the replanting of flowering shrubs and trees. The gradual return of the Gardens to something approaching its pre-war appearance won favourable comments on many occasions.”\n\nMr. R.E. Dean assumed the post of Superintendent of Gardens in January 1948 and work continued on the restoration of the Gardens. The entrance gates and railings around the grounds were re-erected. Forty granite garden seats were replaced. The extensive earth mounds formed by the Japanese were cleared and the formal layout of garden beds enhanced the appearance of the Gardens. In 1949 the superstructure of the Plant and Fern House was completed, the Aviary restored in 1951 and the Mammal House restored in 1953.\n\nThe Herbarium collection, which had been shipped to Penang prior to the Japanese Occupation in 1940, was sent to the Singapore Botanical Garden by the Japanese for safe keeping. The collection was recalled to Hong Kong from Singapore in 1948 and the 40,000 specimens were first housed in the Supper Room of Gov-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210746, "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-1986", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "80\n\nCHAN WING HOI\n\nwere a fishing family who moved in from Naam Tau. The Chan family started the village.\n\nThe jung-lei (chairman)* Mr. Wong Man Gwong, a 59-year-old former seaman, provided more information on local history. It was his great-great-grandfather who first came here. The original population consisted of about 60 fishing households. The Hoklo and Chiu Chau newcomers were already there when he was small. The present site of the golf club was occupied by paddy fields. One village, known as Seung Wai, was relocated to present Shek O to make way for the golf club. Mr. Wong pointed out the place when we passed it in a procession in the festival, which was just outside the golf club enclosure. Traces of walls could still be seen, and Mr. Wong remembered going back there to worship the Daai Wong Ye Earth God when he was small. At the time the golf club was built the foreigners were powerful and met with little resistance when they took away the land from the villages.\n\nA 39-year-old Mr. Lam, an indigenous villager, told me about the occupations of the original Shek O people. At the beginning, the inhabitants made their living in vegetable gardening and fishing. In more recent times the men worked as seamen. Very few people travelled to the West to work in restaurants, and such emigration started only in the last ten years or so. Most people of his own generation worked in the city. Many of the retired seamen came back and worked as waiters at the Shek O Country Club. He was a seaman himself, a radio officer.\n\nA 56-year-old Mr. Lau, the owner of the restaurant where I had a vegetarian dinner, provided additional information about the changes that had taken place in local life. The indigenous people fished with stake-nets (jang-paang). He believed that the golf club was built in the 1930s. It was already there when he was born. But some of the facilities, at least the swimming pool, were still being built when he was small. He remembered that at the age of 7, he was scolded when he jumped on a pile of sand that was prepared for the construction of the swimming pool. Most of the Chinese newcomers at Shek O arrived after the Japanese Occupation. They were Hoklo fishermen who came in their boats. It took only one night to reach Shek O from Hoi Luk Fung when the wind was in...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210747, "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-1986", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "Sacrifice to earth god at a daily procession.\n\nFlag post set up to guide wandering ghosts to the jiu is attended to by a deity (housed in paper shrine at centre of photo) who must also be sacrificed to daily.\n\n81", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210756, "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-1986", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "90\n\nCHAN WING HOI\n\nDaai Si Wong and Baak Mou Seung, an altar for the dead to receive blessings, an altar for Tin Hau and local earth gods, paper images of Yuk Wong and his underlings, and the festival office. Except for the dead, the spirits noted on the altars were the usual ones found in jiu festivals. Among Tin Hau and her companions were gods of Shek O itself. The Daai Si Wong, a deity related to the underworld like the Baak Mou Seung, had the important role of overseeing the ghosts which came for the offerings.\n\nOn one of the altars, there were 105 spirit tablets of ancestors to whom offerings were to be made. Mr. Lau, the restaurant owner I talked to, did not think this a new feature of the festival. But he associated the spirit tablets with the Chiu Chau and Hoklo newcomers. Those immigrants had left their ancestors at their native places. Because it was not easy to return to these places to sacrifice to them, it was necessary to entertain and make offering to the ancestors through the festival. The indigenous villagers had no need to set up the spirit tablets of their ancestors there. They worshipped their ancestors at home where they had set up their altars. Whatever the validity of the reasoning, what Mr. Lau said suggested that very few of the locals had put up spirit tablets for their deceased relatives in the ritual. More than half of these tablets bore only the characters hin-hau or hin-bei, indicating they represented only either the father or the mother. I think this indicates that the other parent was living, and this must mean that these tablets were set up for the recently deceased rather than ancestors of old. In the case of many jiu festivals in single surname settlements, the spirit tablets of the common ancestors were included on one of the festival altars. Here the ancestors were parents of people who had paid for the privilege of leaving the tablets there.\n\nIn a broader sense the ritual site should also include the other areas delimited by flag posts (faan-gon). There were four of those posts at Shek O, marking out the north, south, east and west corners, I was told. In addition, there were two each at Tai Long Wan and Hok Tsui. We learned from the New Territories that faan-gon posts were indications set up for wandering ghosts to inform them they might enjoy offerings at the jiu. However, responding to my question about the faan-gon posts, a local woman replied that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210757, "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-1986", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "91\n\nlanterns affixed on the posts shone on Shek O and Tai Long Wan people.\n\nThe priests and ritual representatives visited the faan-gon posts and made offerings three times a day in a procession called haang-chiu (audience procession). When I followed one of those processions in Shek O, however, I discovered that not all four of the faan-gon posts were erected at the corners of the settlement. The first faan-gon post in Shek O visited by the haang-chiu procession was between the school playground and the quarters of the cleansing unit of the Urban Services Department. One of the local members of the procession volunteered the information that the post was set up there because three years ago a fatal accident took place at the spot. Two young boys who lived in the quarters of the cleansing unit were playing there when a stone pillar fell down suddenly and killed both of them.\n\nV. The local gods\n\nThe Tin Hau was represented by her wooden image at the centre of the altar. Behind the image was a piece of red paper on which the titles of ten local deities were written. With the exception of the Sea Goddess (shui sin) of the small temple at one edge of Shek O Beach, they were Baak-gung and Daai-wong earth gods of Tai Long Wan, Shek O, and Seung Wai. One of them, styled jang-paang daai-wong (earth god of the stakenets), was a reminder of the former fishing activities of the local residents. Many others had probably existed for the protection of villagers in fishing and farming. The change in land use is evident in the reply given by Mr. Wong, the local leader, when asked where the god's place was. He said, \"Below the number 10 alley of the Westerners' residences of Tai Long Wan,\" linking the god with the change that had taken place in the locality. He gave the same description for the location of another god, the Earth god of the Banyan Tree Place. For the Seung Wai daai-wong, he explained that it was below no. 1 alley, which had become a residential area for Westerners. It used to be the villagers' settlement which was removed to Shek O for the construction of the golf club. There were also three gods whose names were not known to Mr. Wong. He believed that those were from Hok Tsui, the village which joined in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210758, "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-1986", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "92\n\nCHAN WING HOI\n\nthe celebration only this time. Neither the yn-sau nor his indigenous deputy whom I talked to knew anything about the gods except for Tin Hau.\n\n9\n\nNeglecting my question as to whether the gods other than Tin Hau had been invited at their own places, the priest Chan Wa expounded his theory of the connection of each god with a locality. He started with the earth gods. The earth god of the “head” of a village guarded the “head” of the village, and his counterpart of the \"tail\" of the village guarded the \"tail\" of the village. Other earth gods, such as the earth gods of the homes of individual families and of hills and graves, guarded their own locations of responsibility. The same principle applied even to Tin Hau (“Ma-neung”). Each village (heung) was guarded by a different ma-neung, each of whom received offerings from the temple of her village. To stress that there was more than one Tin Hau, the priest alluded to the belief that the title was applied to three sisters, not one goddess. He compared the localized nature of the gods with the Qing administration of this region. The Dongguan and Bao'an counties were once under the same magistrate. As communication between different spots of the vast area was inconvenient, the place was later split into separate counties each under its own administration.\n\nMy impression was that although most gods were localized, some were more so than others. While the influences of earth gods were strictly limited to their localities, temple gods were given guardianship of their localities as well as a more or less global portfolio. It is therefore to be expected that when the interest of an individual or a group becomes less localized, it is gods such as Tin Hau whose protection extends beyond a narrowly defined geographic area that remain important, and localized gods whose influence is limited to a small area would receive less attention. In the case of Shek O, some of the latter were earth gods who protected the villagers while they fished and farmed. Now that Shek O residents had given up farming and fishing, although these gods continued to be invited to the jiu, many at the festival hardly knew who they were.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210788, "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-1986", "page_number": 139, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "122\n\nD.L. MICHALK\n\naverted had the Cantonese management consented to employ non-Cantonese workers for tapping and harvesting. However, as experiences with the new crops accumulated, a large number of successful plantations were planted by local businessmen to diversify their interests.\n\nAlthough some of the mineral resources of Hainan were known to the medieval Chinese, the richest deposits were located in the central mountains where mining was prevented by the contumacious Li tribesmen. However, as relationships with the Li people improved and exploration exposed the precise locale of the precious minerals, mines were opened up in the once forbidden interior, but with varying success. At Shi Lu Shan (literally stone-green mountain), for example, an extensive mining operation was commenced with the prospect of exporting the rich copper ore to Europe. Unfortunately, this plan was thwarted by the government who granted sanction to the Chinese company to mine the ore, but denied foreign steamers the use of port facilities for loading the mineral (Swinhoe, 1872a). Misfortune struck again when due to poor management, a cave-in claimed the lives of a hundred workers (Henry, 1886). This effectively closed the mine which also led to the abandonment of searching for silver, lead and iron in the same group of hills. Smaller mines extracting tin, gold and silver were also plagued by cave-ins, particularly in the wet season, although it was the superstitions of the owners of the land or people living nearby who forcibly stopped the diggings for fear that the earth would take revenge for the removal of the precious deposits (Henry, 1886).\n\nLumbering in the Five Finger mountains by the aborigines under the direction of Hakkas proved to be more rewarding than plantations or mining, possibly because the exploitative harvest continued as it had for ten centuries, but on a much larger scale to meet the growing demand for the highly valued Hainan timbers in the mainland. Since Hainan's forests also yielded rattan, incense wood, wild teas and herbal medicines, Hakka traders nurtured a subsidiary commerce with their Li workmen. Migrating to Hainan in the 1750's (Fusson, 1929), the Hakkas had by patient industry and thrift become fairly prosperous, and by befriending both the Han Chinese and the Li, they provided the vital link between the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210797, "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-1986", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "131\n\npeople applied themselves enthusiastically to the task, insufficient capital, the rigid application of ultra-Left policies such as the lop-sided emphasis on developing grain production which did not best utilize Hainan's tropical conditions, and poor technical support are all blamed for the slow progress in Hainan. During the Cultural Revolution in particular, the establishment of new plantations was discontinued, while large areas of mature coconut, rubber and coffee trees were felled to release land for grain production. Forests did not escape indiscriminate clearing: when liberated, there were 863,000 ha of tropical forest on Hainan, but by 1979 only 245,000 ha remained (Smil, 1983). Besides roads, one of the few benefits remaining from the ten turbulent years are the reservoirs and canal networks constructed to provide water for irrigation and generation of electricity.\n\nSome of these problems were caused by inadequate communication between the central government and the grass-roots level, while others are a direct result of ignorance of the biological potential of the tropical environment. The latter was undoubtedly aggravated by debasement of intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution. Further, following the withdrawal of Soviet experts and technical aid to China in 1960, the fostering by Mao of an isolationist policy from both Eastern and Western blocs meant that technical and economic development had to rely exclusively on Chinese talents and expertise. Given the dearth of experience with tropical agriculture amongst the Hainanese, overseas Chinese who had worked on plantations in Malaya, Indonesia and Thailand, but returned to Hainan in the 1950's and 60's, brought a great number of skills with them and deserve credit for much of the achievement made in planting tropical crops. Returning farmers brought with them seeds of crops never before grown in Hainan, and after some nursery testing, pepper, oil palm, new coconut varieties and traditional medicines were sown commercially, initially on overseas Chinese state farms.\n\nThe \"open door\" policy\n\nWith the ousting of the \"Gang of Four\", a resolution on Hainan's development was passed by the State Council in 1980 which placed primary stress on tropical agriculture and associated", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210885, "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-1986", "page_number": 236, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "219\n\nyear from Chan Kan-to, whom he called the owner of the island. Having done so, he then applied to the provincial government for permission to work it.\n\nHe was about to send off a sample of the ore to England, when a mineralogist, Professor Milne of Tokyo, happened to be in Hong Kong. Ho A-mei arranged for him to visit the mines at Tam Chow and Lantao. The professor took some specimens back to Japan for analysis. He found the Tam Chow ore with 13 per cent silver, the same as the English report had been, and the Lantao specimen with five per cent.\n\nA-mei then proceeded to float a company for the development of the two mines. He imported machinery and brought from England a geologist, Mr. T.B. Chandler, as general supervisor, and an experienced Cornish miner, Mr. Phillips, to train and oversee the workers.\n\nA-mei tried to persuade the Kwangtung officials by pointing out that the development of mines would provide work for a large number of unemployed. Instead of going off to America, Australia and other places, the Cantonese people could be kept at home. His Australian experience had convinced him, however, that mines would only be operated profitably if modern machinery and methods were introduced from the West. With these arguments he persuaded the Viceroy of Kwangtung to establish a Bureau of Mines.\n\nIn March 1866, the Lantao Island mine was formally opened. A launch party composed of interested Chinese and Europeans went over from Hongkong.\n\nIt was, of course, necessary to get the favour of the earth god if the mine was to be a success. A small mat shed had been erected as a temporary temple. The sacrificial ceremonies were conducted by Chan, the owner of the land, the mandarin in charge of the island and his assistant, one of the directors of the mining company and Ho A-mei, the promoter of the mine. All of them were dressed in their official mandarin robes and the European observers were suitably impressed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210985, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "22\n\nTwo completely different factors come into the picture, namely Gaullism and Italy.\n\nA hidden but deep correspondence had always existed between Gaullists and Maoists. Both emphasised the importance of historical roots and long-term perspectives, for France de toujours as well as for the Sons of the Han on their everlasting Yellow Earth. Both had refused to align their nuclear policies with the strategies of the superpowers. André Malraux's visit to China in the 1960s, both as a former activist in the 1926-27 revolution and as a prominent Gaullist intellectual, was a symbolic episode, much publicised in France. Had General de Gaulle not died suddenly in 1970, he most probably would have paid Mao Zedong the visit already arranged by his old companion Etienne Manach, then French Ambassador to Peking. It would have been an extraordinary performance, in both the grand French and Chinese traditions.\n\nItaly was also very influential. There has always been a special connection between Italy and China. Chinese intellectuals have always felt very much at home in Italy, and the active sympathy for Maoist China of such prominent Italian intellectuals as Malaparte, Alberto Moravia and Maria-Antonietta Macchiocchi certainly made an impact on Parisian literary circles. Altogether, many influential French intellectuals were in those years very keen on visiting China and however brief their visit publicising their sympathy for China. Be they Claude Roy, Etiemble, Roland Barthes, Philippe Sollers, Julia Kristeva18 or many others, their individual approaches may have differed one from another, but they were all indulging in China as if their commitment to China was more important than China itself. They also affected a definitely revivalistic attitude, as if they were the new sinophiles in the grand eighteenth-century tradition.\n\nBy and large, Maoist China was very chic in French cultural life of the 1950s and 1960s. The theatres were packed full at every Peking Opera visit, the books of Han Suyin sold very well, Chinese exhibitions of art at the Grand Palais were a must, the veteran film-director Joris Ivens, Dutch by birth but settled in France, embarked on a 12-hour film on Yu Gong and People's China's achievements, and the well-established literary publishing series", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211014, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "more down-to-earth \"lower valuations\" of the situation was that genuine friendship between Chinese and Europeans as equals was at the time so rare as to be not worth exemplifying. The same implicit message is conveyed by the deference and outwardly very respectful tone of several of his more formal examples of business letters. On the other hand, his suggestion that readers test the usefulness of the book by picking out any one English word and asking a non-English-speaking Chinese person to read the adjoining Chinese characters and produce the sound required implies quite a modern, empirical attitude towards the question of language and the assumption by Mok Man Cheung of a type of independent, verifiable authority. A.W. Brewin's short and inelegant note, included as an endorsement of the book and quoted at the outset of this article, intimates that the Registrar General had taken the author at his word and conducted a number of these experiments personally.\n\nThe reprint, in the “Introduction” to a second edition of English Made Easy, of the South China Morning Post's review of Mok Man Cheung's work, besides explaining his \"system\" in greater detail, also identifies the book's readership more specifically.\n\nThis work is self-teaching, and it is believed that it will supply a want which has long been felt by the following classes of the Chinese and Chinese who are unacquainted with the sounds of English words:- 1. Country youths who have acquired [sic] a fair Chinese education, but find it inconvenient for them to come from their country homes to learn English. 2. Chinese literates, scholars and officials who are desirous of picking up a few words of simple English to enable them to hold short conversations with Englishmen; 3. Servants in the employ of Europeans who are too old to go to school or unable to attend school for want of means and time.\n\nOne cannot know now the extent to which Mok Man Cheung himself contributed towards this analysis. It is, however, consistent...\n\nPage 51", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211015, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "T \n\n52 \n\ntent with the motive of maximizing the market, ranging, as it does from the local Chinese literati to domestic servants of European residents, and even to \"country youths\", presumably from the recently acquired \"New Territories\". \n\nThe principal contents of English Made Easy comprise Mok Man Cheung's “unique system” for enabling non-English speakers to pronounce the English alphabet, numbers, words, phrases, and sentences, plus an anthology of \"model letters\". Fascinating insights into the quality of the social life of upwardly mobile Chinese at the turn of the century are provided by the selection of materials for these sections of the book. \n\nSeveral of the categories of objects and phenomena, invented by Mok Man Cheung to organize his work, offer evidence about the ambivalence of this sort of person at this time in the face of influences from both East and West. In his list of words referring to \"Objects of Nature\", for example, the earliest words on the list (“Sky”, “Earth”, “Sun”, “Moon”, “Wind”, “Clouds”, “Rain”, etc.) may have been chosen for their compatibility with such traditional Chinese concepts as \"Feng Shui”1 and with other widespread beliefs. \"Spirits”, “Gods”, “Ghost”, and “Devil” are all included. The later entries seem to concentrate more on practical and modern realities, such as “reclamation ground”, “rough sea”, “typhoon”, “drizzle” [sic], “low-tide”, “flood”, and, to conclude happily, \"calm-sea\". In his suggested vocabulary for \"Time and Seasons\", he includes \"Intercalary moon”, “Full moon Festival”, \"Dragon Boat Festival\" and \"Winter Solstice\" as well as “Christmas day\", the days of the week and months of the year by Western reckoning, and a battery of non-culture-specific temporal terms. Mok Man Cheung's list of \"Persons and their Occupations\" begins, perhaps because it was politic to do so in 1905, with \"Emperor\", \"Empress\", \"Crown Prince\", and proceeds to deal with “Mandarin” and “General”, leading on to such occupations as “Maidservant” and “Captain”, before referring to \"Governor\", \"Policemen\" (juxtaposed with “Thief”) and \"Student\". It would not be uncharacteristic of Chinese style if the precise order in which these “Persons and Occupations” are presented is meant to be significant. Even if this is not the case,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211043, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "79\n\nty] there are those who occasionally meet him in the forest. Not long ago there was somebody who traveled through Luofu and had to stay at night among the rocks. He then saw a man without clothes covered only with long hair. Thinking it must be a saint he approached him, saluted twice and asked about the way [Tao]. The man didn't even bother to look at him. He laughed with a sound that shook the trees and answered by chanting the verses: \"When the clouds arrive the hundred thousand mountains move. When the clouds retire the heaven is of but one colour, I repeatedly burst into long laughters. About the deserted mountain, the autumn moon turns white.” It was Yeren.\n\nThe key fact about Yeren in this account is that unlike Ge Hong and his wife, who ascended to heaven after ingesting the cinnabar, Huang Yeren somehow failed to achieve this, even with the cinnabar pill left behind for him by Ge Hong. In one version of this story which we heard at Mt. Luofu, there had been only half a pill left, and this accounted for his failure to levitate. (Perhaps this version is designed to deflect the implication that even with a whole pill of cinnabar, Yeren was not sincere enough or worthy enough, and hence could not levitate). We also heard a version of the story in which Yeren was late for the ascension because he was drunk (a version indignantly denied by others in a later conversation).\" In any case, Yeren became immortal but was stuck for some centuries on earth. He seems to have spent his time wandering in the hills, and engaging in the kind of behaviour which gained him the reputation of “the wild man.\" There are no biographical details available which might identify Yeren as an actual historical figure, although it is quite plausible to suppose that at least some Taoist hermits in the Mt. Luofu area were recluses, seldom seen, whose odd behaviour could have contributed to the development of a myth similar to that of Yeren, the wild man.\" In any case, this figure eventually was credited with several healings.\n\n16\n\nIn appears that there was a second historical Huang who became a Taoist hermit at Luofu about 500 years after the time of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211053, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "89\n\nNorthern Vietnam) he asked to be relieved of office and left the capital for Guangzhou. In 327 he settled in the Zhuming cave of Mt. Luofu where he busied himself collecting medicinal herbs and refining cinnabar. His extensive writings include several important treatises on Taoism and Chinese medicine. (Source: Zongjiao Cidian [Dictionary of religion], Shanghai, Cishu Chubanshe (Lexiographical publishing company), 1981, pp. 997-998; see also Jin Shu [The Book of Jin], volume 72, Zhonghua Shuju). Needham calls him \"the greatest alchemist in Chinese history\" (Science and Civilization in China, vol. II, Cambridge University Press, 1956, p. 437).\n\n14 The story that Huang Yeren was late for the levitation because he was drunk, we heard from a young official of a local Taoist organization whom we interviewed in Guangzhou on August 27, 1987. Cultural affairs cadres whom we interviewed at the main temple on Mt. Luofu on August 28, 1987 indignantly denied this story. The young official also related the story that Huang Yeren (Huang the wild man) had originally been called Huang \"also [in Cantonese “yah”] man” (in many Luofu folk-tales the Yeren is said to appear in the shape of an animal). Later the character for \"also\" (in Mandarin “ye”) had been substituted by that for \"wild\" (in Mandarin also \"ye\"). We have not found any documentary sources which confirm this information.\n\n19 Michel, Soymié, \"Le Lo-feou chan\", 1954. Bulletin de l'école française d'Extrême-orient, Tome XLVIII (ler semestre), 1954, pp. 1-137, raises another possibility (see pp. 109-110): that the Yeren tradition is based on contacts in ancient times, possibly including periodic trading exchanges, between people of the plains of Guangdong and aborigines living on or near the mountain. In the eyes of the plainsmen, the aborigines would appear strange in many respects, especially in speech and appearance. Stories derived from these contacts might have become the basis for the Yeren legend. Supporting this interpretation, Soymié notes, is the fact that Yeren was thought to be able to appear as a man or a woman, a young person or an old person, and that Yeren is in fact a category of \"strange person apparitions” rather than a single figure. Clearly, once such a flexible figure had become established in the popular imagination, sightings of almost anything on the mountain could feed into the growing folklore about Yeren.\n\n16 Some stories of healings by Yeren are contained in Luofushan Fengwuzhi (Records of Mt. Luofu scenery), Guangdong Lüyou Chubanshe (Tourist affairs publishing co., 1984). This source also records the tradition that the cave of Yeren was guarded by a mute tiger. The chapter in which the healings are recorded is titled, \"The earth-bound fairy riding on a mute tiger.\"\n\n17 Source: Nanhan Shu (The book of Southern Han), Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe, 1981 (reprint), volume 17. This story was also related to Ragvald by scholars of the provincial Wenshi Guan (Research institute of culture and history) whom the first author interviewed in Guangzhou, September, 1987.\n\n18 These details are in notes provided to the first author by the Wenshi Guan scholars (see previous footnote), and were evidently taken by them from an addition to the Nanhan Shu, titled Nanhan Shu Kao Yi (Collating the variants), volume 17.\n\n19 We have not yet been able to verify the exact location of the temple, which apparently is called Huangxianweng miao (The temple of old saint Huang). There may be several other Huang Li temples in this region.\n\n20 According to Nanhan Shu Kao Yi (volume 17) his original name may have been Wang rather than Huang. Evidently he changed his surname to Huang (in Canton...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211059, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "95\n\nHong Kong as Wong Tai Sin. Her informant claimed that\n\nOne day he was found dead sitting in a Buddhist meditation position at the base of a cliff and covered with earth from a land-slide. When his body was removed it was found to be sweet-smelling and uncorrupt. (Topley and Hayes, 1966:129)\n\nThis version conflicts sharply with the temple's version of the hermit's life on earth, a version based on classical literary sources. Obviously Topley's Cantonese informant had not had access to the official account. But such unusual details as she related are unlikely to have been fabricated on the spot by the informant herself. Where then did the informant get her version of the story? It was not long before we discovered the probable source: a similar story would have been circulating in Hong Kong in 1966 concerning the monk Yuet Kai, who had died in 1965 at the age of 87 after presiding over a Buddhist temple and pagoda in Sha Tin, New Territories, since the early 1950's. After he died,\n\nHis body was placed in a sitting position in a square box. It was then buried in the hillside behind his temples, and, after eight months, the body was exhumed. People who were there have recorded that there was hardly any sign of decay, and that the body had a phosphorescent glow. (Savidge, 1977:107)\n\nThe coincidence of details between the two cases — the individual was buried in a sitting position on [or at the base of] a hillside, and when exhumed his body had not decayed — suggests that the Cantonese lady was transferring a miracle story she had heard about an obscure monk to explain the origins of a famous god who was once an equally obscure hermit.\n\nThis process of the adoption of a miracle story originating in another context to embellish a narrative or fill gaps in one's knowledge may or may not be deliberate. Doubtless in some cases it results from faulty memory. While these \"errors\" seldom leave identifiable traces in literary sources, occasionally they can be detected, as for instance in the apparent assimilation of deeds\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211062, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "98\n\nNOTES\n\nResearch for this paper was carried out in Hong Kong in the Spring of 1984. We would like to thank John Dolfin, Director of the Universities Service Centre, for the use of that invaluable facility during our research, and John Ashton of Memorial University for some helpful suggestions. Parts of the paper were included in a presentation at a colloquium of the Sociology Department, Hong Kong University, May, 1984.\n\n1 \"Wong Tai Sin\" is the most common transliteration in Hong Kong of the god's name. The pinyin transliteration is Huang Daxian. Here, the common Hong Kong transliterations are used, except for place-names in China such as Guangzhou (Canton), Guangdong (Kwangtung), and Chejiang.\n\n2 The cases to be described are here termed motifs in the sense used by Allen and Montell (1981:38-9), who note that \"the characteristic feature of these migratory narrative elements is their transferability among stories about different events or persons.\"\n\n3 This is the only Wong Tai Sin temple known to most believers in Hong Kong, and the prominence of the god in Hong Kong has occurred entirely as a result of the success, for various historical reasons, of this one temple. There is also a private Wong Tai Sin temple in Kowloon, as well as a small private shrine in Macau, but they have had no influence on the popularity of the god.\n\nbut\n\nSome temples in Guangzhou were indeed destroyed early in this century by Nationalists rather than by the elements (see for instance Rhoads, 1975:255). Perhaps our informant's account of the destruction of the temple was a tradition dating back to these events.\n\n5 The fact that the icon of the god brought to Hong Kong from Guangdong is a picture rather than a statue suggests, as we argue in another paper (Lang and Ragvald, 1988), that the god was worshipped in Guangdong as the patron god of a family herbal medicine business (see Day, 1969, on these \"paper gods\" and their role in family worship).\n\nThe organization which manages the temple, the Sik Sik Yuen, has published the official history of the temple in commemorative brochures, especially: Sik Sik Yuen, 1971; 1981; 1982,\n\n7 Ogura (1980) argues that the drifted deity tradition evolved from an earlier tradition of belief in periodic visits by gods from their abodes beyond the sea. There is no such tradition in the Hong Kong area.\n\n1 The temple's version of the Taoist hermit's life on earth before he became a god is in the form of a short autobiography, supposedly dictated by the god to a Taoist. It appears on a plaque in the temple, and also in brochures published by the Sik Sik Yuen. It has been discovered by Dr. Shiu-hon Wong of Hong Kong University that this account follows closely a capsule biography of the hermit written in the 4th century A.D. as part of the collection \"Biographies of Immortals\", by Ge Hong. This literary version holds that the Taoist hermit Wong, while herding sheep in Chejiang province, discovered a method of achieving immortality. He also manifested his power by turning a hillside of boulders into sheep. These two achievements figure prominently in the temple's \"autobiography\" of the god.\n\nThe story of a saint whose body remains uncorrupted and even sweet-smelling long after burial is a common motif in Christian legends. Loomis (1948:54) cites about two hundred instances.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211078, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "114\n\nTie. The best man held a black umbrella over the groom, draped with a strip of red cotton: although it was not raining, bad spirits may have been about and it is common Chinese tradition to protect those about to be married from harm befalling them.\n\nThe procession reached the temple of Ma Jo (#), the Hoklo name for Tin Hau. This is the main temple in Yim Liu Ha. The women redoubled their rowing efforts and the Chilin cavorted and stretched as the groom and best man went in. After making obeisance to the god, they came out, bowed and lit incense at the little shrine opposite the temple, all the while to the deafening accompaniment of gongs and cymbals.\n\nFirecrackers were set off and after a further brief visit to the temple, the procession continued on its way to the shrine of the earth god, To Dei Gung (±‡A) at the beginning of the village. Two of the rowers were now carrying small branches of kumquat leaves with which they flailed the air. The Chilin pounced and postured, incense was burned as a sign of respect, and the god offered food from a basket of carefully arranged chickens and other tasty morsels. The bridegroom and best man bowed to the god, more firecrackers were set off, and the procession reformed to return to the house, taking with it the basket of food.\n\nThe proceedings so far had taken about an hour, and all felt entitled to a rest. Then at 11:30 am, the procession resumed as the bridegroom prepared to leave the village to collect his bride from Kwan Tei. This time he was carrying a bouquet of artificial pink roses to give to the bride. The women rowers had increased in number: the drummer at the front now wearing a funny hat, while of the eight in the middle, two pairs were wearing aprons while two pairs were not. These were followed by the woman representing the tail of the dragon, and then by a \"fortunate\" woman whose parents were both living and who had several children. She was carrying a round rattan sieve with pomelo leaves, cypress leaves, and two pieces of ginger root, traditional emblems of marriage, long life, and fertility. After this came the Chilin, the band, and the groom and best man with the umbrella.\n\nThey stopped briefly outside the temple and the earth god to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211080, "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "116\n\nThe dragon boat procession reformed and set off in the direction of the groom's home where the newly weds would live. Two women in front were wearing funny hats: one banging the gong while the other thumped a plastic oil drum. They were followed by eight pairs of women rowing in formation, while at the back were the two women with the rudder of tin cans and the woman representing the dragon's tail. Above the bride's head was held the sieve of pomelo leaves and ginger root, carried by the 'fortunate' woman. One attendant, wearing a Western style short evening dress, was carrying a pink umbrella held over the bride, to which was tied a sprig of cypress and pomelo leaves with red cord. A second attendant carried the red and gold patterned tin suitcase known as gar chong (#), containing the jewellery the bride had been given, while a further attendant brought a large suitcase with the bride's belongings. Another woman carried a white enamel basin decorated with red characters for double happiness and flower motifs. In the basin food and other items were wrapped in red cellophane paper, and decorated with cypress leaves.\n\nThe procession stopped briefly in front of the earth god and again firecrackers were set off. At the Ma Jo temple the young couple paused and bowed three times before continuing to their new home. Cymbals rose to a crescendo; the couple, followed by other relatives and the Chilin, went into the house, and a long string of firecrackers was set off.\n\nThe rest of the procession now dispersed as those inside the house settled down for a cool soft drink. It was now 2.15 pm and in the street women were feasting on food prepared that morning, especially on a salty vegetable soup known as ham choy cha (**), chicken, and for dessert, sweet dumplings which are only served at Lunar New Year and special occasions such as wedding ceremonies. These are considered a lucky symbol of getting together. Later that afternoon the newly weds would offer tea to the groom's parents, and then at 6.00 pm all who had taken part in the ceremony were invited to a restaurant in the village of Sha Tau Kok for a large feast to round off the day's festivities.\n\nPlates 19-23 illustrate this article. They were taken by the author.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211249, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "285\n\nthe stream, waterfalls and gardens returned.\n\nIt had been an impressive show, enlivened by the little comedy of the amiable man and the two girls.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nNOTES ON TEMPLES AND SHRINES,\n\nHONG KONG ISLAND\n\nThe 1983 Journal contains my article about urban shrines and temples, written largely from the organizational and managerial aspects. See \"Secular Non-Gentry Leadership of Temple and Shrine Organizations in Urban British Hong Kong”, in JHKRBAS 23 (1983), pp. 113-136.\n\nThe present Note refers to one of the shrines examined in the article, the Earth God shrine at Sheung Fung Lane, Sai Ying Pun at pp. 121-124 therein: and to another in the urban area of Hong Kong Island which was not included. This second shrine is the Pak Kung altar at Peel Street in the Central District, just below the junction of Peel and Staunton Streets.\n\nSheung Fung Lane\n\nOn 9th February 1974, when serving in the Urban Services Department as Assistant Director of Urban Services (Hong Kong Island) I attended the opening of the celebrations marking the god's birthday which falls in the first lunar month.\n\nThere was a pailau (M) or ornamental arch at the junction of Queen's Road West with Centre Street. The stage for the customary puppet opera performances, together with its adjacent temporary altar, both made of bamboo, were assembled in a nearby public playground. The whole frontage of the combined stage and shrine constituted another pailau.\n\nRibbons were stretched across the whole frontage, with another", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211254, "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": 315, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "290\n\nwhilst the shrine was at Elgin Street, largely because no Hoklo troupes were available in Hong Kong or could visit from the mainland. The position improved when members of troupes reassembled here.\n\nIt is usual in these traditional festivals for an image of the patron god to be installed in a special altar at the theatre matshed or nearby. At Peel Street this is not necessary, because the shrine faces down this sloping street directly onto the opera stage. The god could see all without moving his position. When I asked whether any other images were brought from neighbouring shrines, there was a unanimous and swift denial!\n\nThe group of devotees, at any rate in and up to 1974, were mainly persons from To Tong Market, and all Hoklo speakers. The personnel of the Hoklo opera group hired in the previous few years were all Hoklos from Hoi Luk Fung, but only one of them was a native of To Tong Hui.\n\nI did not ask about management in 1974, though I gathered that they described their managers as ta-lei yan and not as chik-lei, which is more common among the Hong Kong shrine and temple groups.\n\nBesides the annual celebration, there is also religious activity at the shrine on the first and fifteenth days of each month.\n\nIt is curious that, although the Peel Street shrine is dedicated to an earth god, there are no celebrations on either the first or second months of the lunar calendar, when so many of the local shrines in town and country carry out major activities. The Sheung Fung Lane shrine's big day is in the first moon, as with the Tai Ping Shan and Kennedy Town shrines also mentioned in the article (pp. 124-127). The Nam On Fong shrine at Shau Kei Wan (pp. 128-130) originally celebrated in the second lunar month. However, the Sai Wan Ho earth god shrine at the other end of Shau Kei Wan had always celebrated the Yue Lan or \"Hungry Ghost\" festival as its principal event, for as far back as memory and local tradition served (pp. 130-132). There is variety in all things, old and new, mercifully.\n\nPage 315\n\nPage 316", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211311, "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": 27, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "3\n\nduring the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Sino-Vietnamese water world was a region further linked by the dynamics of a covert, illegal, but highly utilitarian exchange: the iron of China for the rice of Vietnam. The rice surpluses of Vietnam were important to the burgeoning Cantonese population no longer able to feed itself, but Vietnamese law forbade the exportation of rice. At the same time the Chinese were barred from exporting the iron so greatly desired across the border that Vietnamese officials often waived their own regulations for Chinese junks that brought it in by reducing or eliminating the customary port duties. Because each country needed products from the other and open trade was not possible, a well-established smuggling operation, in which the line between smuggling and piracy was often very thin, resulted.\n\nFinally, there was at all times within the water world a pool of potential pirates. Most numerous among them were the fishermen who almost always had trouble making ends meet, merchants and petty traders whose businesses had failed, outlaws, whose last recourse in fleeing from justice was the sea, and other ne'er-do-wells whom Wei Yuan indiscriminately labelled as \"scum of the coast\". In short, these were the flotsam of the earth, who, after having been pushed off the land, found themselves in desperate straits at the water's edge.\n\nTheir combined energies gave rise to the petty piracy of part-time fishermen-pirates that flourished along the Sino-Vietnamese border for centuries. Petty piracy was a small-scale affair consisting of limited groups of between ten and thirty men who possessed at most a single junk or two. Although such gangs might come together and disperse several times in the course of their activities, each functioned as a single, independent unit whose members were simultaneously connected to no other groups. Survival was their goal and their tactics consisted of sporadic raids and hit and run attacks.\n\nWas there then some kind of ecological or environmental crisis which can account for the dramatic upsurge in Chinese piracy at the end of the eighteenth century? The answer appears to be \"no\", for although ecology can explain why piracy persisted within the water world for centuries, there seems to be no major environmental crisis that can provide a single-handed explanation for the growth of piracy. The overall", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211364, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "56\n\nthe cause. He sought to bring the attention of the public to the problem by instituting a court action against three women for forcing their children to carry loads likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury.\n\nThe facts of the case were stated before the Magistrate by the Assistant Superintendent of Police:\n\nDr. Aubrey, whilst going down from the Peak... met the defendants with their children carrying baskets filled with lime and earth to the Peak. Two of the boys, one of whom was crying, were eleven and thirteen years. Dr. Aubrey telephoned the police, who arrested the defendants. Enquiries solicited information that the women had been engaged by a coolie sub-contractor on Third Street to carry lime, earth and sand up to the Peak at sixteen cents a picul. The women naturally made their children assist them, as it would increase their earnings. One child was carrying sixty pounds of earth, another two baskets of lime and a third carried thirty-two pounds of lime. He, himself, had tested the weight, and from his own experience thought the loads were too heavy for the children.*\n\nDr. Aubrey told the court he did not bring the case to have a heavy penalty inflicted on the women. His purpose was to bring the practice to public attention and also so that other coolies would realise such practices were not allowed.\n\nThe Magistrate observed that the only way to stop the practice was to have legislation. Dr. Aubrey pointed out that ultimately the contractors ought to bear the responsibility as they were well aware that some children would be carrying the loads. In this case the contractors could not be found. The Assistant Superintendent of Police suggested that if the women were discharged with a caution, the matter would soon be circulated among the other coolies. The Magistrate accordingly discharged the women.\n\nThe case did attract public attention. The Hong Kong Telegraph in an editorial reminded its readers that they had all seen \"the heartless manner in which boys and girls of tender years are forced to carry loads", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211424, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "116\n\nhad to postpone its Christmas celebrations by a week, and that several Kauluwela boys were unsuccessful in their attempt to enter high school. After a quarantine of a week, the disease was considered stamped out. Ping Lim and Ting On, both of whom were attending Oahu College, were on a three-week vacation then.\n\nIn a letter dated 20 February 1900, Ping Lim wrote:\n\n\"My dear brother Ping Yip Chan:- On account of the great distance between town and our residing place in Moanalua and the inconvenience of getting your letter at once which came to me on Tuesday afternoon, the 14th of Feb., when the steamer was about to leave, I did not answer you immediately. You are, no doubt, wondering why I am in Moanalua. The cause was that S. M. Damon was afraid that his brother F. W. Damon's residence and the school might burn down in case one of our members should have attached the plague, and also the school's neighbourhood is in a very bad condition. So we moved to a small island owned by S. M. Damon, which is near to the 3 mi. water pumping tank, and borrowed six tents from the Kamehameha School to make our chambers. Four of them used for us, sixty in number, and one for the three teachers, and one for a food storeroom. You may think it is crowded but there the ocean wind is pretty strong. At first we expected to live there one week or two, but after having been there a week the news reached us, stating that several Chinamen working in the Pantheon stables, which are adjacent to our school, have died of plague and so these buildings were soon turned to ashes. Afterwards the whole block in which we live was said to be infected and a rough fence has been built around the block. The people of this spot have been put under quarantine. Had we not made the move we are surely in quarantine.\n\nNow I must turn to another important subject. Well, you have told me that the burning of Chinatown is the most cruel act that was done to our Chinese by the whites. No, the properties destroying itself was not so half bad as to see our ignorant helpless bind-footed Chinese women and babies crying and running forcibly for their lives on the streets, when the unexpected fire came. More than this, some few women who were about to let their babies out to earth were pushed to the drays which took them to quarantine. While during these hours it has been said that some births have occurred. Of course the Chinamen were driven like cattle by the inspectors who carried stakes or some other beating instruments in their hands. After that the men and women, numbering several thousand, were taken to the Kawaiahau Church and grounds. The women lived inside the church while the men outside on the grounds with tents. I am sorry to say that father, brother and in-law's whole family were among these people. During their residing in the church, I went to see father every day, asking if there was anything wanting. Many articles and foods have been taken there by our store partners. But after having been in there for a week they were driven to Kalihi just a little below the Kamehameha School where a great number of new rough rooms have been set up. In Kalihi's I can't see any of our known people to talk with there. All I can do is to send letters to them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211426, "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": 142, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "118\n\nIn May 1903, he wrote that he had been ill since the 7th of April, three weeks before the examinations. He said that he had 'walking typhoid fever' but felt he had been cured since he no longer suffered from fever or numbness of his legs, although he was still thin and weak. His doctor had assured him he would be perfectly well by the end of the month. Subsequently, in July, he went to San Jose for a short vacation with plans to transfer to Stanford University the coming year in order to benefit from the more hospitable climate of Palo Alto. Due to increased responsibilities with the arrival of his concubine in San Francisco a few weeks before, First Uncle could not help Ping Lim much except to pay the doctor's bill of 50 dollars, and to advise him to return to Hawaii in view of the fact that First Uncle could not continue supporting him. Grandfather sent him 20 dollars, but he still had to borrow 200 dollars from a friend. He also asked Father to send him 30 dollars to buy himself a new suit. He must have left California for Honolulu soon after that, because a letter from a friend, Otis S. Lee, dated 18 August 1903, expresses surprise to learn of his departure and said that all his friends missed him.\n\nAlthough it was hoped that convalescence in Manoa would restore his health, Ping Lim died on 2 October 1903. It was a great blow to the family, especially to Grandfather. There was a eulogy to him in the San Francisco Chinese newspaper, for he had cultivated the friendship of a group of students from China and of other intellectuals exposed to Western thinking who would later participate in the political changes in China.\n\nIt was an annual ritual in early spring for Father to take Ruth and me with him to the Lin Yee Cemetery in East Manoa (established 7 June 1889) to pay respects to Uncle Ping Lim and his mother. We would take the Manoa street car to the end of the line, walk some distance along a country road to reach the cemetery and place a bunch of asters, Father's favourite offering, on each grave, located only after a long search among unkempt plots. Fourteen years after Uncle's death, Father hired a man to exhume the remains of Uncle and his mother in order to return them to their native land for permanent burial. I remember watching with fascination, after the earth was removed, the man lifting the lid from the wooden coffin and seeing a fully-clothed shape of a body that quickly deflated as air got to it. Taking mouthfuls", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211483, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "175\n\nof worth. I believe she found me to be a loyal companion when Mr. Johnson died and she was left alone with me in a big house. Midwesterners are solid, down-to-earth people who are sincere and faithful friends, and I value among them Reuben and Viola Hasskart, May Chamberlain, Augusta and Emma Baegl, Eula Lumpp, Virginia DeTar O'Toole, Ernie Graves, and the Frank DuTeils, most of whom have passed away.\n\nBeing a zoology major, I spent most of my time in Bassey Hall where the zoology and botany departments were housed. The staff consisted of a group of kindly men who took an interest in our learning and progress. Dr. Robert H. Wolcott was head of the Zoology Department; Dr. Harold W. Manter taught parasitology; Dr. D. D. Whitney taught genetics, using rotifers in his research; Dr. H. H. Waite taught bacteriology but passed away unexpectedly during the year; and Dr. Irving H. Blake, under whose supervision I did my research and thesis, taught anatomy. Dr. George E. Hudson and Mr. Webster were my laboratory instructors in Zoology and Anatomy, while Mr. Dean and Mr. Lawrence F. Lindgren gave me guidance in the bacteriology laboratory. Many of my classmates were either pre-medical or pre-dental students full of life and pranks. I always shied away from the room where they worked on cadavers for fear an arm or a leg would come flying through the doorway. Since the department was not large, I got to know other staff members, such as Dr. Otis Wade and Dr. T. J. Fitzpatrick, a botanist and librarian for the two departments, who would often offer me a ride home.\n\nAfter receiving a B.Sc. degree in 1931, I decided to work for an M.Sc. in histology. I owe much to the university for granting me a monthly stipend of ten dollars and free tuition, in return for correcting the laboratory work of freshmen zoology students. There was a good deal of fellowship among the few of us who shared the graduates room for our projects — Erickson, Dilworth, Kucera and Smith. My thesis, \"The Histology of the Alimentary Tract of the Deepwater Gurnard Peristedion longispatha (Goode and Bean)\", was published in the University of Nebraska Studies, Volume 41, No. 1, August 1941, and also in the Journal of Morphology. I was active in Phi Sigma, an organization interested in research, and to my surprise, I was elected into Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi upon my graduation in 1932.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211517, "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": 234, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "210\n\nof the ground, so that they can rise up with the balloon in due course: these youths have to light the fuses at just the right moment when the balloon takes off (see plate 6).\n\nOnce the balloon is fully erect, the oil-soaked ball is set alight and fixed to the centre of the wire struts at the rim. The balloon is pulled down to the ground and held down by as many of the village youths as possible, to maximise the heating effect of the very ardent fire produced by the oil-soaked ball (see plate 7).\n\nLighting of the old peanut oil ball was not always easy, and often took some time; the modern diesel soaked balls are much easier to light. In either case, once lit, the balloon soon begins to glow like a huge lantern, and the whole balloon quickly starts to strain upwards. The young men of the village try to restrain the balloon until the whole surface of the oil-ball was well alight, to ensure that the balloon flies upwards quickly and directly, with no dangerous lurches to the side where village buildings and crops stand ready to be set on fire. Usually, the balloon's lift is, however, so great that the young men are unable to restrain it for more than a few seconds. This is the most dangerous time, as the risks of the balloon catching fire at this stage are high: about half, in fact, fail and collapse in flame in this stage. If they don't burn out, the lift is great enough to carry the balloon up to a height of several thousand feet: balloons will cross the mountains of the New Territories with little problem. Ideally, the night for flying a balloon should be still and windless, so that the balloon goes straight up and hangs like a great lantern over the village, only drifting off slowly (see plate 8). A well-made balloon with a peanut oil-ball would burn, the villagers state, throughout the night and into the following day. Certainly, within the last 3 years, the author has seen balloons still hanging two or three hundred feet above the ground well into the morning after the Mid Autumn Festival. Diesel fired balloons burn out quicker, and tend to drift back to earth after an hour or so.\n\nThe villagers are and were aware of the fire-risks inherent in these balloons. The danger was when the balloon came back to earth still burning rather than staying in mid-air until the oil burnt out and the balloon drifted, dead, slowly back to earth. If the balloon was not restrained for the first few seconds after it was lit, or if the paper dome\n\n!\n\n!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211534, "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": 251, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "227\n\ncertainly quite old, which proves that these pieces of equipment are durable and have long working lives. That particular one had been in use until after the War.\n\nThe newer of the two hullers was already 35 years old in 1972, and had been made in the village a few years before the War. Its maker was a Hakka man named Tse (i) from Kai Ham (4), one of the villages above Ho Chung in Sai Kung District. He was skilled in their manufacture and had been called in to do the job. This information came from another lady, 71 in 1972, who had come into the village upon her marriage at 25 years of age, about 1926.\n\nMr. Tse first wove the bamboo frame for the huller, and for the base on which the huller sits, and then filled the insides with local earth that was free from sand, stiffened with slivers of bamboo. The earth (PCE) from the hills round Ma Yau Tong was said to be good for this purpose. The earth was then pounded until it became very hard.\n\nThe huller was clearly very heavy, and turning it to separate the husks or hulls from the rice kernels (*) requires a lot of strength. It was usual for two persons, men or women, to operate it, pushing on a wooden handle. The handle was bow-shaped, with a crosspiece at the end against which the operators pushed. (See plate 13). The lower end of the handle fitted into a hole in the beam which turned the huller. This handle was made in the village.\n\nThe (*) was put into the top of the huller, and I was told that both the kernel and the husks came out together from the slightly protruding rim of the grinder onto the ledge below the rim.\n\nThe final piece of information given by the friendly villagers was that the grinder had cost $30: meaning that this was what they had paid Mr. Tse. I don't know how long he had stayed in the village to finish the job, as I forgot to ask this question!\n\nMr. Lawrence Yau, Curator, Regional Services Department, Museums Section has drawn to my attention a description of a rice huller of the same type as the one I saw at Ma Yau Tong in the book Tin Kung Kai Wu (NZM) by Sung Ying-hsing (!) of the Ming dynasty.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211550, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "243\n\nprimordial village is about what he calls \"the rights of settlement\". Or as he (p. 8) put it, “most lineages possess little beyond the rights of settlement\". His examples illustrating these rights of settlement show that outsiders can come to terms with incumbents of an existing village by marriage, employment, litigation or force. So if settlement is negotiable in these ways, then multi-lineage villages should be, contra Freedman, a normal phenomenon as well. It is only when village membership has been gained according to these rights of settlement that the village can begin the process of lineage-building. Chapter 2 cites several such examples of lineage-village within a village. Proceeding to higher levels of village organization, Faure argues that the village as a local or territorial community has a religion of its own which is distinct from and equally important as ancestor worship in the expression of territorial identity. As he (pp. 70-71) put it explicitly, \"the earth-god shrines and temples reflect a different aspect of the villager's religion, but like the ancestral hall, they are foci of local organization. . . . The act of founding the temple sets up a bond between the village and the deity\". Village religion is important in his subsequent discussion of villages and village clusters to show that the definition of a village and village clusters do not necessarily follow the expectations of a descent model. Likewise in the case of village alliances, Faure argues that all such alliances found to exist within the traditional New Territories, even those archetypical regional defense alliances, were territorially rather than lineage based in nature (perhaps contrary to the kind of “system” described by Kuhn (1970)). More importantly, such alliances, according to Faure, have only existed since the mid-19th century and well after the peak of the Five Great Clans era (for discussion of the latter, see Baker 1966).\n\nThe latter half of the book essentially sets up his attempt in Chapter 10 to reconstruct the political history of The Five Great Clans during the 14th-19th centuries, in contrast to the development of lineage communities that one sets in the aftermath of the \"great\" era. In fact, much of his reconstruction is an attempt to demystify the stature of these great clans by showing how they and the gaudy ancestral halls they created to embellish their image represented primarily the unintentional creation of official policies. Or as he (p. 165) put it, “real lineage society did not depend on ornate ancestral halls”. All of this finally permits him in the final analysis to criticize historians for glorifying the ancestral", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211630, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 45, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "20 \n\nsecure a writ of pardon for a soul in the Underworld. Buddhists have occasionally accused the Taoists of stealing him from their pantheon. The Buddhist Indra, known as Yu Ti (**玉帝**), literally The Jade Emperor, was, they say, adopted by Taoists to counter Buddhist power. Others suggest that the Jade Emperor was a creation of a Chinese emperor to help maintain the authority and stability of his rule. In one popular version the Sung emperor Chen Tsung (**宋真宗**) in AD 1012, in order to divert his ministers from an unfortunate treaty he had been obliged to sign with some barbarian tribes, announced with great pomp that he had been visited in a dream by an immortal with a letter from the Jade Emperor. In the letter the Jade Emperor explained that he was sending one of the emperor's ancestors in person. The Sung emperor then claimed that a dazzling deity appeared before him in a dream and informed him that he was the Jade Emperor, Master of Heaven and Earth, and the Incarnation of Tao. Later the emperor, having announced that the visit had taken place, ordered that thereafter the Jade Emperor, “one of his ancestors\", was to be treated as a major deity. The next year, in 1013, the Jade Emperor's image was cast and placed in a special temple, the Jade Palace (**玉皇殿**) where it was worshipped by the whole court. One hundred years later, the Sung emperor Hui Tsung (**宋徽宗**) built an even more magnificent temple for the Jade Emperor and thereafter the image was portrayed in imperial robes.\n\nH. Y. Feng3 claimed that the earliest reference to the Jade Emperor was in a poem by Han Yu (768-824), a Confucian scholar who wrote, admiring plum blossom, \"Riding clouds we came together to the home of Yuh Huang', proving, he states, that the Sung emperor's claims were after the fact. However, state recognition by emperor Chen Tsung made the Jade Emperor an important deity in the pantheon.\n\nA Fukienese legend describes the Jade Emperor as being born to a queen who conceived miraculously after a visit by T'ai Shang Lao Chun (Lao Tzu) in a dream. When this prince in due course became king, he ruled with great compassion and concern, and was a model ruler who later devoted part of his life to religion and attained sainthood. This was, however, many centuries before the Sung emperor Chen Tsung popularised the cult.\n\nAnother popular version explains how the Jade Emperor appeared in his visible manifestation to a Sung emperor and told him that he, The Jade Emperor, was the manifestation of the power and thought of Tao,\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211640, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "30\n\non an altar in a folk religion temple in Pongol in northern Singapore.\n\nIn the Feng Shen Yen I, mythical tales known to most Chinese, Yang Chien is described as the nephew of the Jade Emperor. Yang, also known as Erh Lang in some stories and in some temples, was a mythical general fighting for the legendary Shang (Yin) dynasty during the wars of the 12th century BC.\n\nAnother popular romance of the Ming, the Journey to the West, better known as the story of Monkey, tells of the incident when a heavenly being was exiled to Earth for re-incarnation as a punishment for assaulting one of the Jade Emperor's daughters. By mistake he entered the womb of a sow and was born half-man and half-pig and is now best known as Piggy, one of Monkey's assistants.\n\nThe Jade Emperor's festivals are celebrated on his birthday, the 8th and 9th of the first lunar month, and on the 6th of the eleventh lunar month, the anniversary of his ascension. In parts of Taiwan he is also feasted on the 24th of the sixth lunar month, and in South-East Asia on the 6th of the fourth, and fifth of the eighth lunar months. Though it is not a date on which humans especially revere the Jade Emperor, all the gods of Heaven assemble on the 19th of the first lunar month to pay their respects to him.\n\nHe is offered a feast on his birthday which includes duck and chicken, but must include pork. These offerings are placed on a table in the open, before the front entrance to the courtyard, together with candles and the large-size sticks of incense. Two whole sugar canes with leaves intact are especially popular offerings in Fukien communities to celebrate the escape of Fukienese who hid amongst the fields of cane to avoid being killed by an enemy. The survivors offered such canes to the Jade Emperor in thanks and the custom has persisted.\n\nIn general, routine offerings before the altar of the Jade Emperor consist of the standard three sticks of smouldering incense. However, offerings of a vegetarian feast are made to him in Hong Kong on the first day of the lunar new year, accompanied by the burning of spirit money. Not all families perform this ritual, many Hoklo and Hakka families prefer only to offer the basic vegetarian meal.\n\nThe Jade Emperor is usually accompanied on the altar by images of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211641, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "31\n\naides and guardians. His two major aides, according to a Taiwanese temple keeper, are major deities in their own right:\n\nT'ai I Chiu K'u T'ien Tsun (AZREF) and Lei Yin P'u Hua T'ien Tsun (LEO).\n\nHe has a senior deity as his personal messenger, Teh Chih Chiangchun (特赤將軍)\n\nA Buddhist priest guiding a visitor around his temple in Chia I county in Taiwan, in which the Jade Emperor was the main deity on a side altar in a side hall pointed out that he had four bodyguards:\n\nThe Marshals Wen (溫), Ma (馬), K'ang (康) and Chao (趙) with blue, white, red and black faces respectively.\n\nThe full title of the Jade Emperor is:\n\nHao T'ien Chin Kuan Yu Huang Shang Ti (昊天金阙玉皇上帝) or T'ien Ti San Chieh Shih Fang Wan Ling Chen Tsai (天帝三界十方万灵真宰). This is possibly best translated as The True Lord of Heaven, Earth and Mankind, in all areas and of the Mystical Spirits.\n\nThe following are the short titles by which the Jade Emperor is known:\n\nYu Ti (玉帝)\n\nYu Huang T'ien Kung (玉皇天公)\n\nT'ien Kung (天公)\n\nT'ien Kung Tsu (天公祖)\n\nT'ien Kung Yeh Yeh (天公爷爷)\n\nT'ien Shang Ti (天上帝)\n\nTien Ti (天帝)\n\nHe is also known as:\n\nYu Huang Ta T'ien Tsun Hsuan Ch'iung Kao Shang Ti (玉皇大天尊玄穹高上帝)\n\nYu Ch'ing Shang Ti (玉清上帝)\n\nHao T'ien Shang Ti (昊天上帝)\n\nShang Ti (上帝)\n\nLao T'ien Yeh (老天爷) North China", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211642, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "32\n\nHuang T'ien Shang Yi (LR)\n\nSan Chieh Yu Huang Ta Ti (三界玉皇大帝)\n\n(The San Chieh altar before a temple entrance in Fukienese and Ch'aochou communities, represents the Supreme Deity, T'ien Kung (The Jade Emperor). It is a trinity of Heaven, Earth and Mankind, and the altar is usually higher than normal altars.)\n\nYuan Chih T'ien Tsun (X) (Taiwan)\n\nYu Huang Chih Tsun(玉皇至尊)\n\nYu Huang Ta T'ien Tsun (X) (Taoist)\n\nCh'ing Ching Tzu Jan Chiao Wang Ju Lai (a**=**)\n\nSome temple keepers claim that Yuan Shih Tien Tsun is an incarnation or alternative title for the Jade Emperor. Though Yuan Shih T'ien Tsun is often claimed to be the Supreme Emperor of the Beginning of time, he is primarily a member of the Trinity, the San Ch'ing (), and its first member. He is the First Principle, he has no beginning and no end, is the source of truth and his doctrine leads to Immortality. He dwells in the Kunlun Mountains and was possibly a deity invented by the Taoists to counter the then growing influence of Buddha. His image appears with that of the Jade Emperor on a number of temple altars, thus highlighting the difference between the two deities.\n\nMost of the information related above about the Jade Emperor is reasonably well known; however, the question of the images of the children of the Jade Emperor is a subject which appears not to have been investigated before. Most of the children, numbering up to seven daughters and four sons, appear on altars with their father, in groups on their own or individually alone as deities in their own right. Temple keepers without exception did not know why the particular son or daughter was represented on the altar in their temple though some suggested that the children were really well known major deities such as T'ien Hou and Kuan Yin. However, it is understandable that individual members of the Jade Emperor's family who are referred to on a number of occasions in the legendary history, the Feng Shen Yen I, together with mythical apotheosised heroes from the same legends whose images appear on Chinese altars, should themselves also appear on Chinese altars.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211646, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "36\n\nto have a soft cloth crown either with or without a top knot, usually coloured blue. Again, a carver in Taipei put this and the other differences down to the whim of individual carvers. According to legend in Singapore, one of the Pestilence Wang Yeh, after he had received his deification authority from Heaven saw a plague demon scattering plague pellets over the Earth. The Pestilence Wang Yeh, Yeh Wang Yeh according to the raconteur, gathered them all up and swallowed the lot to save mankind from being inflicted. At once his hair stood on end and his eyes protruded in their sockets, and this is how his image is portrayed. However, when we examined the image the only characteristic noted were his round protruding eyes.\n\nAll Pestilence Wang Yeh are portrayed seated, rarely with anything in their hands though the occasional one has a drawn sword held at waist height, but this is rare. Most have their feet resting on small animals, usually stylised lions. A god carver explained, in relation to the Pestilence Wang Yeh, that it is important that the feet of senior or powerful deities do not rest directly on the ground, it is just not done!\n\nFrom the earliest pioneering days of the colonization of southern China by northern Chinese epidemics have ravaged southern populations. Devastating epidemics of plague and parasites, fevers and contagious diseases linked with lowered resistance in the hotter and humid south left the settlers in dread of smallpox, paratyphoid, cholera, dengue and malaria. Contemporary medical expertise was completely out of its depth and unable to be of much help, leaving the immigrants only their gods to turn to for protection and a cure. The settlers brought south with them the concept, already well known to the colonizers from north and central China that sickness was caused by the forces of evil. These forces, invisible armies of demons led by demonic generals had to be repelled and, if possible, destroyed. As these forces were from the other world the best, and possibly the only counter would be to use the righteous and virtuous spiritual forces in the other world,\n\nEventually, within the Chinese pantheon a Ministry of Epidemics was conceptualised incorporating the various sickness-countering deities, each bearing not only its personal name and title but also local colloquial titles the best known of which is probably the Sickness Spirits (or gods) (Wen Shen). These are known amongst Fukienese communities as the Pestilence Spirits, the Wang Yeh.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211649, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "39\n\nmajor festival held every five years, hence their title. The ten are Chang (H), Hsu (1), Keng (I), Wu (5), Ho (FPJ), Hsuch (B‡), Feng (B), Chao (#), T'an (M) and Lu (F).\n\nThe generally accepted leader of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is Chih Wang Yeh (1) who is also known by other honorifics, as are other Pestilence Wang Yeh, as Chih Fu Wang Yeh (b); Chih Fu Yuan Shuai (EBD); Chih Fu Ch'ien Sui (af); Chih Fu Tai Hsun (£FF{X); Chih Ch'ien Sui (-1) or Tai T'ien Chin Fu (RX##). In Singapore and Malaysia a not uncommon title for the Pestilence Wang Yeh is 'Great One' (Ta Jen AA), a title more frequently given to non-Pestilence Wang Yeh in Taiwan. In Ang Mo Kio in Singapore three Pestilence Wang Yeh, Li, Liu and Chin who occupy the main altar are referred to both as Ta Jen and Wang Yeh in temple notices. They are prayed to not only for protection from disease but also for tranquility in the home. In Taiwan and South-East Asia a number of what would be non-Pestilence Wang Yeh in Fukienese communities are referred to as Lao Yeh (Em) and Ta Jen. They are mainly in Hakka communities and are very local deified and revered worthies.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh are identifiable by the honorific 'Touring and Inspecting on behalf of Heaven' (Tai T'ien Hsun Shou X). The various other titles borne by Pestilence Wang Yeh in Taiwan include Tsun Wang (Honourable Prince), with the three on the altar being the First, Second and Third Honourable Princes (AZE); Ch'ien Sui (Prince or Excellency T); En Wang (Prince of KindnessE); Wang Kung (Prince 4), and 'An Emissary for Disaster Relief' (Hsing Ts'ai Shih Chih 77(K).\n\nA number of temple keepers differentiate between a Wang Yeh and a Ch'ien Sui. The former they claim to be permanent whilst Ch'ien Sui are only temporarily on Earth 'for less than one thousand years'. The Wang Yeh are said to be the senior, promoted on orders from Heaven, whilst the Ch'ien Sui are deities promoted by popular acclaim. They are, however, prayed to in the same way, for the same things and with the same results. The latter are also the patrons of sorcerers (wushih ZEL) who use them as a go-between between them and their spiritual contacts. There is little functional differentiation as all are believed to be capable of fending off disasters and curing sickness.\n\nIn one instance, and probably in others too, the full title of a particular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211666, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 81, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "56\n\nbeaten and thrown out by his two partners. Having lost everything the mother had to take in washing even though she was seven months pregnant. One day whilst washing clothes by the river she slipped but luckily the local Earth God seeing her falling, changed into a dog and rescued her, dragging her out of the water. When she regained consciousness the Earth God had changed into an old woman who helped deliver her of a healthy boy, Hsu En-te (4). The beating had caused the father injuries which prevented him from working and the family lived in poverty. The father, unable to stand it any more went out to hang himself but met with a local dignitary named Kuan who, when he had heard the sad story took the family back to his house and cared for them. The father slowly recovered and when fully back to his old self he became a rent collector for Mr Kuan. On one of his trips out collecting rent he encountered his two former partners from the silk shop who again robbed him and took the rents he had just collected, beat him up again and this time the father died of his injuries as he crawled back to the Kuan household. By this time En-te was seven years old and he swore never to forget those who had done his family such great wrongs. He worked at looking after the accounts for Mr Kuan and secretly started to learn martial arts. He was accomplished by the time he was fifteen. When he was sixteen the Kuan household was attacked by bandits and to everyone's surprise En-te not only beat them off but detained three of them. At first he turned down the offer from a local magistrate to become the head of the local police force but as his mother wished him to serve the people he finally accepted the offer and served three years.\n\nWhen, after the three years, he returned to live in the Kuan household he discovered that one of the two partners who had killed his father was also living in the Kuan household together with his daughter. The killer was hated by everyone but being afraid of him they left him well alone to live in peace. The killer fell ill, repented and expressed his deep sorrow at his heinous crimes. Hsu En-te gave some money to the daughter so that she could buy medicines for her father.\n\nAfter many incidents En-te eventually married the daughter of his father's killer and when, much later, En-te himself died he was revered by the local population as a benefactor and was looked upon by them as their protective deity. The cult was carried across to Taiwan, to the temple in a village near Tainan where the immigrants from Kiangsu established it as Hsu Wang Yeh,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211674, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "64\n\non earth had induced me to make such an appalling selection of colours. When I explained that the selection had very kindly been made by Mrs. L..... the temperature quickly rose to boiling point. As the ladies said, \"Why, Mrs. L. . . . hardly ever comes to the Club; and she never plays bridge\". I beat a hasty retreat to drown my sorrows at the bar, and soon after found it convenient to give up bridge altogether.\n\nIn the Club the consumption of liquids, refreshing or otherwise, varied. Sometimes it led to peculiar situations. There was the occasion in 1924 I think when late one night the two other members of the Municipal Council, by which the small affairs of the Concession were managed, took offence at the vinous truculence of their Chairman, and called in the police to remove him to cool his heels in the cells. Unfortunately the two strong-minded, but junior, members of the Council on the following morning, when they awoke refreshed by a night of comfort at home in bed, had quite forgotten the events of the previous evening; and it was not till later in the day, after he had himself come to, that they received a plaintive reminder from their Chairman requesting that he might be released from his own police cells.\n\nThroughout the period of 1911-1926 the Treaty Ports, such as Kiu Kiang, provided harbours of refuge, to whose security hundreds of thousands of Chinese threatened by the tide of civil war, fled.\n\nKiu Kiang had had its share of recent disturbances. For Sun Yat Sen, having applied to British officials for help and having met with a refusal, based on the correct British attitude of non-interference in the internal affairs of a friendly country, had turned to Russia. Michael Borodin with a group of Bolshevik advisers had consequently proceeded to Canton to advise the Kuo Min Tang Revolutionary Party and there, with consummate skill, had created the intellectual cohesion necessary to the effort of unifying China. Borodin appealed to the deep-seated exclusive instincts of the sons of Han, the inhabitants of a kingdom, which from time immemorial had been called the Middle Kingdom, because all other peoples existed only in outer darkness.\n\nThe instrument was the Chinese Revolutionary Army, led by officers indoctrinated with Kuo Min Tang ideology at the Whampoa Military Academy, of which General Chiang Kai Shek was principal. By October of 1926 this army, fighting staunchly through incredible hardships against", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211689, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "79\n\nCommandant of the near-by Gendarmerie post promised us protection, he took no steps to implement his promise, and we had a number of invasions from parties of Japanese soldiers, on and off duty, sometimes searching for arms, sometimes frankly looting watches, jewellery and other small valuables. My wife had a polite but firm way of dealing with these intruders, and in the end they got nothing from us but some cigarettes.\n\nOn January 3rd Mr. Gimson (the Colonial Secretary) and Mr. Alabaster (the Attorney-General) came up the hill to find out what had happened to us. They told me that they had spoken to Mr. Yano (who had come back to Hongkong temporarily as Consul-General) and the Gendarmerie people about us and the other Embassy and Consular personnel who were in Hongkong (Mr. and Mrs. Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Rich, Evans, Herrett and Miss Howkins) and we were to be given special consideration. This was comforting but in the event did not mean very much as there was the usual confusion between the different Japanese authorities, none of whom seemed to pay the slightest attention to the others.\n\nThen on January 5th notices were posted up in different places instructing all enemy aliens to report at the Murray Parade Ground between 10 a.m. and noon for internment. The notice said they could take what luggage they could carry in their hands and that they must leave the rest of their property in charge of some responsible person. This notice only came to our knowledge on the Peak at 9 a.m. People didn't know what on earth to do. If they started off immediately, walking down the Peak, they could get to the Murray Parade Ground in time. But there were old people, babies and invalids. Most people thought it would be dangerous to disobey a peremptory order like that, and they struggled down the hill as best they could, taking a suitcase or pushing a pram and abandoning everything else to the looters.\n\nFor my wife and myself there was no problem as we couldn't walk, so we decided to stay and hope for the best, and a good number of others followed our example. As it happened, things turned out all right, as Sir Arthur Macgregor called later in the day to say that he had arranged with the Gendarmerie that the people still on the Peak might remain temporarily but must be ready to move at a minute's notice. However, the Police post had gone, we were in difficulties about food and water (we had eaten the last crust of three-weeks-old bread that morning), and we had had an unpleasant visit from a party of Japanese soldiers at 2 a.m. We were completely alone in the flat, other flats in the building had already been looted, and generally the situation was unpromising. So we asked Sir Atholl to try", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211735, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "125\n\nhillslope at the back and sides.\n\nstone\n\nAs far as can be ascertained, the walls of the nunnery are throughout either of blue brick or of heavily plastered stone rubble, on footings of the standard building technique in the region. The roofs are of tile laid single thickness on beams supported directly by the walls. The only windows are very small (about one foot square) openings with bars and wooden shutters in the front face in the second and fourth sections, and the side wall of the fourth section, and two tiny single-brick openings, in the front wall of the second section, and the side wall of the fourth section.\n\nThe main temple hall is the third section. The main entrance to the nunnery is here, at the top of a shallow flight of steps. The double-leaved door opens into an Entrance Hall bare of all furniture except for the brick spirit-screen wall, with the altar to Wai To (卫道), the Defender of the Way, against its inner face. The Entrance Hall opens out into the Tin Tseng, which is mostly filled with the large brick paper-burner, and the steps up to the upper level. Above the steps is the Main Hall, with the altar against the back wall, and with a large offering table in front. The altar is to Kwun Yam, and has statues of the Lord Buddha (Sakyamuni), and the King of Hell (Ti Ts'ang Wang, 地藏王), as well as of Kwun Yam on it. To either side of the main altar are very small subordinate altars, where the tablets commemorating certain deceased monks are kept. In front of the main cult statues are five small images: two are unidentified, the others are of Milofu, Shan Ts'ai (善财), and Yũ Nũ (玉女). Below the altar is the usual shrine to the spirits of the Five Directions (五方).*\n\nTo the left of the Main Hall as you look at it from the entrance, i.e., at the back of the second section of the building, is the Side Hall, containing an altar to the Earth God (To Tei, 土地). This Side Hall has no Tin Tseng or windows, and is in consequence rather dark, being lit only by the light coming in from the arch which links this Hall with the Main Hall. The nunnery is now in a very run-down state, and it is not clear what furnishings were originally in this Hall: presumably there was an offering table of some sort in front of the altar. This Side Hall contains the inscription commemorating the rebuilding of the nunnery in 1868.\n\n* I am indebted to Mr. Keith G. Stevens for identification of the deities worshipped in the nunnery.\n\nPage 150\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211736, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "126\n\nThis was all the worshipping space that there was in the nunnery: the remaining five-eighths of the building was occupied by living space.\n\nThe whole of the first section, and the front part of the second section, formed the living quarters of the resident nuns. The back part of the first section was cut off with a wooden screen wall to form a bedchamber, or Fong, for the abbess. This chamber had a ceiling, thus forming a cockloft above it. This cockloft was accessible by a ladder from within the abbess's chamber: it is likely that this cockloft was always used, as now, as storage space.\n\nThe bedchambers of the other nuns were in the front part of the second section. Two bedchambers were provided, one at ground level, and the other in the cockloft above it, with a store-room behind, which could possibly have been used as a further chamber if need be. The ground floor chamber, and the cockloft above it, both have tiny shuttered windows - the lower chamber also has a single-brick opening. The store-room chamber is lit only by what light comes through the door from the Tin Tseng. At present, the ground floor chamber has two trestle beds in it, with no beds in the other chambers: this probably merely represents a convenience for the recently deceased single elderly resident nun.\n\nThe area in front of the abbess's chamber was the main reception hall. This was originally furnished with a couple of chairs and side tables for reception of honoured guests, and some of the original furniture seems to survive amid the rubbish which fills much of the area now. This part of the living space is cut off from the front part of the first section by a screen wall with arches. This front part, or lower hall, was where the daily work of the nuns took place, where they ate, and where the equipment they used for growing vegetables was stored. A rice-pounder is let into the floor against the outer wall. A small partitioned-off area here was probably the nuns' latrine. The nuns had their own direct access to the road by a door in this section. The living quarters of the nuns connected with the rest of the nunnery only through the doorway into the Side Hall with the Earth God altar: at night the nuns could bar this door and close themselves off in their own quarters without worrying themselves about anyone in the guest quarters or coming in off the road.\n\nThe guest quarters were in the fourth section. The back part of this section is cut off by a brick wall to form a bedchamber. This has a cockloft", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211811, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 226, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "201\n\n+\n\nhimself uncomfortable, with one of the nicest looking creatures for a wife imaginable. (...) Mr. BRUSHWOOD did the 'green eyed monster' admirably and the character suited him well—we mean of course artistically. By a skilful arrangement the warmth of a kiss was made to be followed by Cool as a Cucumber. Did the manager intend this to impart a deeper meaning than is conveyed on the face of the \"play-bill\"? We have an esteem for him and hope not: for although a kiss is, sometimes, but the prelude of a coolness that surpasses even that of a cucumber, we would not have Mr PROTEUS openly hint as much\". This piece called forth all the powers of the manager himself, and so perfectly was the coolness of Mr. Plumper exhibited, whether as regards the criticism of Mr. Barkins' face or his sherry, that, had he stepped from the neighbouring ice-house directly upon the stage, he could not have looked cooler (this was a reference to the Commercial Hotel; see note 94) What a desirable companion he would make, we thought, for the hot weather, but Mr. Proteus must be so, indeed, in any weather. The playing was well sustained throughout and Mr. BRUSHWOOD did his best — and that was not a little — to fret and fume as ‘Old Barkins' — but we can scarcely say that he looked a heavy father\" (the heavy father was one of the specialist roles in a stock company). A Conjugal Lesson was \"decidedly the crowning piece of the evening and was performed with an amount of case and artistic ability which elicited loud and well merited applause\". And as the critic had evidently taken a fancy to \"Mrs. NESBIT” he continued that she “looked more fascinating and piquant than ever and quite won the hearts of the bachelor portion of the audience who were altogether at a loss to understand the bad taste of Mr. Lullaby who could stay away from such an attraction till three in the morning!” (NCH 28.3.1857).\n\n23.4.1857 (Thur)\n\nT. TAYLOR: \"Still Waters Run Deep\" (1856)\n\nT: Comedy (3 acts)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: “A Capital Match” (1852)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nTh: N.N. (C\n\n—\n\nR: That other favourite of the reviewer, Peter PROTEUS, had resigned and so the evening had to do without him. In the introduction to his report, the \"Man on the Bund\" referred to the playbill which informed him \"in capitals of vermillion that Still Waters Run Deep and of other matters besides in the like flaming manner”. About the piece he was not at all content: \"Muddy waters, however, as well as still, they turned out to be. This piece is one of those incongruous mixtures of French novel morality and English domestic life, which is as offensive and preposterous, as it is ludicrous. London milliners may persist in imitating the extravagances of French crinoline and superabundant circumference: they dress up our wives and sisters until they have destroyed every graceful curve they may have and make them look like balloons endowed with feminine heads and shoulders; and with a growl we may submit to this perversion of taste and whim of fashion. But when our playwrights, in their dearth of invention, ransack the repertories of the minor Parisian theatres for something new, which they themselves cannot originate, and stumbling upon the old and stale subject of Parisian conjugal infidelity, try to fit it into English social life, especially that of the middle class, the attempt excites at once our scorn and laughter, and ought, like monstrous bandorgans and other nuisances, to be put a stop to\". Small wonder then that in it \"there was much good acting thrown away. Mr. CLAY performed, throughout, the part he had undertaken, admirably. His conception of his character was good and was given with fidelity and ability. It was just how a blunt, honest Englishman might have been expected to act when, by some extraordinary chance, his domestic privacy is invaded by such a frenchified monstrosity as Captain Hawkesley. Mr. ROLLER too did the lean and slippered Pantaloon most successfully. His ease of manner on the stage and finished...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211936, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 351, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "326\n\nwere listed for me as follows: Wing Lung Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Shui Tau Tsuen, Shui Mei Tsuen, Tsi Tong Tsuen, Tai Hong Tsuen, Kam Hing Wai, Ko Po Tsuen, and Kam Tin Shi.\" Four wai, five tsuen (chyun) and one shi. It does not agree with the numbers of 5 wai and 6 chyun. The expression no longer corresponds to the present situation. Their explanation for the discrepancy was that some of the original villages did not exist anymore. One example they gave is the case of Pak Wai, which had become a tsuen (chyun) after its wall had fallen. Some of the villages have very small populations nowadays, and some of the eleven original villages are now missing. Another factor involved is that, to many of the villagers, Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen were not quite distinct from one another, and sometimes the two names were used interchangeably. The name San Wai was quite often used by them to refer to Tai Hong Tsuen, sometimes both.\n\n \n Village\n 1895\n 1960\n \n \n Kat Hing Wai\n 308\n 410\n \n \n Shui Tau\n 416\n 655\n \n \n Shui Mei\n 181\n 250\n \n \n Tai Hong Wai\n 176\n 215\n \n \n Wing Lung Wai\n 154\n 250\n \n \n Tai Hong Tsuen\n 33\n 155\n \n \n San Wai (Tsi Tong Tsuen)\n 28\n \n \n \n Kam Hing Wai\n 69\n \n \n \n Ko Po\n 64\n 205\n \n \n Kam Tin Shi\n \n \n \n \n Total\n 1412\n 2140\n \n\nAs can be seen in the table above, the populations of the Kam Tin villages are very uneven. Five of them are often referred to by the local villagers as \"the five main villages\". They were Shui Tau, Shui Mei, Kat Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, and Wing Lung Wai. Among the smaller villages, Tai Hong Tsuen and Tsi Tong Tsuen are considered part of Tai Hong Wai. They take part in the dim-dang ceremony for the newborn at the shrine of the God of Earth and Grain at the Wai and join the jiu of the wai.\n\nOn a higher level, the Kam Tin villages are divided into two groups:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211947, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 362, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "337\n\nThe Jau and Wong Temple also used to house spirit tablets to \"heroes\". The tablets (three in total, without names) were moved to the Yau-Leun Tong from the side altar in the temple about 50 years ago because they were siu-yan (“small people”), and it was unseemly to house them in the same temple as the two great men (daai-yan). As mentioned before, villagers agreed that the “heroes” were those who had died in fighting (da-saat) between Kam Tin and its enemies.\n\nKam Tin has quite a number of other temples. There are the Man-Cheung Temple and Hung-Sing Temple in Shui Tau, and the Tin-Hau Temple in Shui Mei. Many of the other villages, e.g. Kam Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen, and Wing Lung Wai, which do not have “standard” temples, have a san-teng, a house with an altar for a spirit tablet for about ten popular temple gods. The gods of some of the vanished temples, which include a Yeung-Hau Temple and a Bou-Dak Chi in Shui Mei, and the Hung-Fan Taam Temple of Shui Tau, are still worshipped in the jiu festival, as are the gods of two nunneries, in Shui Mei and Tai Hong Wai respectively, which no longer exist.\n\nThese temples and nunneries hold tablets or images of some 20 different gods, if we are to include the Earth God for temples, and Wai-To for Buddhist establishments. The other 18 include the popular temple gods Yeung-Hau, Tin-Hau, Bak-Dai, Man-Cheung, Gwun-Yam, Gwaan-Dai, Hung-Sing, the God of Wealth, Gam-Fa, Taai-Seui, the Dragon King, and the Buddha. The Bou-Dak Chi housed spirit tablets for Jau and Wong. There is not much information about this other temple dedicated to Jau and Wong, but it was worshipped probably only by the villagers of Shui Tau, where it was situated.\n\nFui-Sing, and Fa-Gung Fa-Mou are probably respectively responsible for success in imperial examinations and the health of children. Hoi-Saan Suk-Lou is a title found in some other local temples as well, and represents the earliest settlers of the place. Hong-Wong is a title that I have not seen elsewhere in the New Territories.\n\nThe titles of localized gods found in most of the Kam Tin villages include the God of Earth and Grain, the Water God of wells, and the Earth God for the gates of the walled villages. There are, in some of the villages, a Tree God and Earth Gods for bridges and for the gate to a complex of houses. In addition, there are Ngau-Wong and Pun-Gu,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211949, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 364, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "339\n\nbut moved the Dei-Jong Wong inside the Buddhist hall instead.\"7 After the building of the Buddhist hall two of the nuns were added to the managers of the trust, and since then the Dangs did not have much to do with the nunnery except that the related ritual associations go annually to worship at the charitable grave.\n\nB. Household and village worship\n\nEveryday worship is local and is mainly performed by women. Such is the case of a family of Tsi Tong Tsuen who gave me information on this point. This family seldom worshipped in any temple. For weddings they worshipped at the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall, where the head of the family also went when he was small for the annual worship, and to get his shares of the ritual pork. This he no longer does, having stopped a few years ago. In some years he also joins the ancestral grave worship in Tsuen Wan. On Ching Ming and Chung Yeung his family went to worship their own near ancestors. On festivals his family worshipped at Tsi Tong Tsuen's shrines to the Earth God and the God of Earth and Grain and the place for the Well God.\n\nI was able to talk with some of the older women. One Tai Hong Wai woman born in the 1910s told me that ordinarily her family worshipped at home. They went to neither the Jau and Wong Temple nor the Hung-Sing Temple. They had no share in the Hung-Sing Temple. They did go to the Daai-Wong Temple at Yuen Long, early in the first month of the lunar calendar, but it is the business of their men only: the temple belonged to their distant ancestor. Similarly, an elderly Kat Hing Wai lady told me that Pak Wai Tsuen (i.e., Shui Tau and Shui Mei) people worshipped at the Hung Sing Temple. I have witnessed part of a waan-san (“thanksgiving”) ritual in Kat Hing Wai, which took place at the san-teng. I was told that for impromptu religious activities such as divination, some of the Kat Hing Wai women went to a temple at Tai Shue Ha [which is, as far as I know, not otherwise of interest to the Dangs of Kam-Tin] and some went to Ling-Wan Ji. They went to the Jau and Wong temple mainly during the jiu, and the temples at Shui Tau and Shui Mei were for their respective villagers alone.\n\nA san teng was probably considered to be of central importance to its village. When I walked with an elder to his house we passed the san-teng of Tai Hong Wai. He explained to me that it was the wai-jyu, and he compared its status in the village to that of the most senior and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211950, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 365, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "340\n\nrespected person in a family. I found in Wing Lung Wai that the households take their turn to take care of the incense and lamps of their san-teng. It probably plays an important part in major celebrations: in Tai Hong Wai I noticed that wedding deui-lyuns couplets had been put on both the san-teng doors and the village gate.\n\nOf a similar status were the places for the Gods of Earth and Grain, where communal worship (jou-se) is held once or twice a year. In addition, there is the hoi-dang ceremony for the new born children of the village. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, and Wing Lung Wai village-level collective worship includes a jiu. It is held once in seven years at Tai Hong Wai, once in five years, at Kat Hing Wai, and once in ten years at Wing Lung Wai. The Tai Hong Wai case is probably representative. The rituals are simpler than the one for Kam Tin as a whole, and lasted only two days and one evening. The main feature is the offering of paper clothing to hungry ghosts.\n\n49\n\nIn some cases the social unit involved in the rites for the new born and other collective rites is a lineage segment in a village and in one case a main village and its associated smaller settlements. Some villages have more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain. Shui Tau has two. The one belongs to the whole village of Shui Tau while the other one belongs only to the descendants of Gam-Tin jou, who have their hoi-dang there. Similarly, there is more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain in Shui Mei. One of them is worshipped by the Git-Sau jou people alone, who make offerings of paper clothing there at the Yu-Laan Festival. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, its jiu, and the rite for the newly born include as participants the villagers of Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. The hoi-dang at the Ching-Lok ancestral hall is not precisely a lineage event: only his descendants living in Shui Tau and Shui Mei take part.\n\nBesides worship associated with membership in residential and sometimes partially lineage segment units, there is worship organized by ritual associations. There are quite a few ritual associations (san-wui) in Kam Tin. Each has its landed property, which ranges from one daam-jung (about 65 thousand square feet) to about 500 thousand square feet of farm land. A share was inherited by all the descendants of the original shareholders. In some cases, one share was actually shared by a few dozen people. Some of the shares were acquired by the present holder by purchase. Worship by these associations takes place once a year, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211969, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 384, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "359\n\nThe offerings included fruits and cha-gwo pastries. In addition to these they burnt paper clothing for Jau and Wong, and a yellow piece of paper with the characters wing-bou-ping-on (\"unremitting protection\") and some yun-bou for the earth god.\n\nB. Setting up the ghost flags\n\nEarly in the morning of the opening day, after the rite of Fetching Water, the ritual representatives on their own installed faan flag posts for the worship of ghosts. There were five of these posts, each set up by the ritual representatives of one gu.\n\nThe ritual representatives took precautions in this rite, since it dealt with ghosts. They told each other the taboos to observe in installing the posts. One should avoid speaking people's names out loud while this was being done. It would be wise to be silent. It was said (by the ritual representatives) that those who posted a faan should be those to dismount it afterwards. Some of the ritual representatives complained about not getting red packets for doing the rite. It was not for the money, they said, but for the good fortune.\n\nThese faan posts were initiated by the priests in the first Procession of Offerings.\n\nC. Inviting the gods\n\nBeside the temple gods and other localized gods of Kam Tin, gods were fetched from the Pat Heung Temple at Sheung Tsuen and the Yuen Kong Temple. These two places were included because the places, I was told by the villagers, originally belonged to Kam Tin. Also fetched was the portrait of the Heavenly Master from his altar inside the village gate of Tai Hong Wai.\n\nGenerally the ritual representatives of each gu were responsible for fetching their own gods: e.g. the gods at the Hung-Sing Temple and Man-Cheung Temple were fetched by the ritual representatives of Shui Tau. There were special arrangements for the gods important to the Kam Tin Dangs as a whole, and gods from outside the heung: (1) Ritual representatives no. 1 to no. 5 went to Ling-Wan Ji, as well as to the temples of Yuen Kong and Sheung Tsuen; (2) All 60 ritual representatives went to fetch the Heavenly Master from Tai Hong Wai; (3) The Head", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211971, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 386, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "361\n\nBack at the ritual site, the ritual representatives installed the image of Gwun-Yam in the temporary altar dedicated to her, and the spirit tablets for the others in the san-paang altar for general gods. These, with the spirit tablets for the gods from the villages, gradually filled up the three levels of the temporary altar. Two ritual representatives fetched the tablet of Hung-Yi from the Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall to his altar on the stage. The portrait of the Heavenly Master was fetched from the village gate of Tai Hong Wai, and installed at a temporary altar set up for him in the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall.\n\nThere were also a few deities to be invited from the sky. They included Tin-Dei-Sheui-Yeung, the gods of the realms of Heaven, Earth (the Underworld), Water, and the human world; Gods of the Naam-Dau (\"North Dipper\") and Bak-Dau (\"South Dipper\"), both for blessings to men; the City God and the Lei-Wik (who supervises the local Gods of Earth and Grain and the Earth Gods); Tin-Chyun San-Gwan (two common titles of the highest deities); and the Dragon King. In the last stage of the Opening Rite there were complaints that those gods were omitted. But later on that day temporary spirit tablets for them were seen in the san-paang.\n\nD. Procession of incense I\n\nThe first Procession of Incense took place on the main day of the ritual, to the participating villages of the Kam Tin heung. It was to visit all the temples, shrines, and major ancestral halls to worship the gods and higher-level ancestors. There did not seem to have been a clearcut rule about the lower-level ancestral halls. When I mentioned to an elder that the procession had stopped and worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, his first response was that the procession should not have worshipped there. But he changed his mind later: the worship in the rite was indiscriminative, it went to every ancestral hall if the doors were open.\n\nA very large number of villagers participated. Priests took part in the procession as well, but their part was limited to a brief invocation. Most of the villagers wore hats with special ornaments indicating their villages. The procession was accompanied by the sound of large gongs, a flag saying jeun-heung (\"to offer incense\"), and the priests' musician playing sona. There was one lion dance group, and Luk Gwok flags and percussion teams playing drum and gong on lo-gu ga frames representing each of the five main villages. There were also flags", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211972, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 387, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "362\n\nassociated with lion dance groups. The ritual representatives held incense burners, but the joss sticks in them were not lighted from the beginning to the end of the procession.\n\nMr. Dang Jik-Wai, an elder of Tai Hong Wai, with an outsider who had lived in Kam Tin since shortly after the war and was employed by the rural committee, led the procession. Mr. Dang had a list on a piece of paper of the gods to worship. The procession left the main ritual area where the participants had been waiting since the end of the rite of posting the Memorial.\n\nThey first stopped at the Wa-Bou altar for the God of Earth and Grain at Shui Tau. From there they proceeded to the Tin-Hau Temple at Shui Mei and worshipped at the Temple, and two nearby altars for the God of Earth and Grain. The procession then turned south to Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall at Shui Tau, and worshipped at the Ancestral Hall, and at the Hung-Sing Temple. Next they worshipped at another altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shui Tau, the Yi-Dai School (i.e. Man-Cheung Temple), and the altar for the God of Earth and Grain for the Mui Jai Yun section of the village.\n\nThey entered Kam Hing Wai and worshipped at the san-teng, the earth god's place at the former village gate, as well as the altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe party proceeded to Kam Tin Shi, where they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. They intended to enter Yau-Leun Tong to worship too. But it was locked and no one in the procession had the key. So they made the offerings at the door. They then entered Sa Bui Leng and worshipped at the ruin of a former san-teng and the god of the well.\n\nThey continued the procession to Ko Po, where they worshipped the God of the well, the God of the village gate, and an altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe procession turned back and continued towards Kat Hing Wai, where they worshipped at its altar for the God of Earth and Grain outside the village wall, and then entered the village and worshipped at the san-teng. The procession then took Kam Sheung Road to the san-teng (?) of Naam-Teng.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211973, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 388, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "363\n\nThey now entered Tai Hong Tsuen. They first worshipped at the san-teng. The party worshipped at a well of Tsi Tong Tsuen. Next they worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, and then at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThey made offerings at the spot where Gau Ga Chyun used to be.\n\nThen they proceeded to Wing Lung Wai, where they worshipped first at an altar of the God of Earth and Grain, then at the village gate, then the san-teng, and finally at the ancestral hall of Gwok-Yin Jou.\n\nThe procession turned back and went to worship at the altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shing Mun San Tsuen, a village of outsiders who moved to Kam Tin when their village, Shing Mun, was destroyed in the 1930s for the construction of the Shing Mun Reservoir. Then the procession entered Tai Hong Wai to worship at its san-teng, village gate, altar for the God of Earth and Grain and well. After this the procession went back to the festival site.\n\nThe procession was received and treated to soft drinks and cakes at Shui Mei, Shui Tau, Sa Bui Leng, Ko Po, Kat Hing Wai, Wing Lung Wai and Tai Hong Wai by the local villagers.\n\nE. Procession of incense II\n\nThis second procession took place on the day after the main day. It was to visit Ying Lung Wai, the village of Hung-Yi's descendants outside Kam Tin, as well as the Yuen Long Old Market and the villages in its vicinity. The other spots were included because the Yuen Long Market had once belonged to a segment of the Kam Tin Dang lineage, and they used to have landed property in the surrounding villages.\n\nThe procession started at 12:40. The equipment involved was more or less the same as the previous day, but I also noticed something I had not seen before: two lanterns saying \"to offer incense\" and two banners saying \"keep quiet\" and \"keep clear\", and burning incense inside a \"pavilion\" on a table carried by poles. There were a very large number of people again, but less than the previous day. The same Dang Jik-Wai, and the headmaster of Mung Yeung School, originally from Ko Po, led the procession.\n\n363", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211974, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 389, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "364\n\nThey left the festival site, passing Tai Hong Wai and Ko Po, where those who took part were offered drinks. They next reached Ying Lung Wai, where they were met by the lion dance of the village, and treated to soft drinks. They first worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain of Ying Lung Wai, then the san-teng and the village gate.\n\nThey proceeded to Tung Tau Tsuen, where they worshipped at the Tin-Hau Temple and then the Gwun-Yam Temple. No one came to meet them. But nearby two elderly ladies exchanged these remarks among themselves, \"The two temples belong to Kam Tin fellows, they wanted to repair them, but Tung Tau Tsuen would not let them\".\n\nThey proceeded to the Old Market. First they worshipped at the market gate then at the Bak-Dai Temple, and then at the Daai-Wong Temple.\n\nThen they moved on to Nam Pin Wai, where they worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain, the san-teng and the village gate. A man in his fifties sitting under a tree cursed the Dangs when he saw the Ambulance which was in attendance in case anyone was overcome by the heat. He said, \"Right. Let this Ambulance carry these Kam Tin fellows\".\n\nAt the nearby Sai Pin Wai they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. There was a reception. They proceeded to a Lam Yi-Hing Tong” inside Sai Pin Wai, and then the village gate and an altar of the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe procession finished with the Old Market and the surrounding villages, and went on to Yuen Long New Market. When they reached Sau Fu Street, they were offered soft drinks by people who had come from Kam Tin for that purpose. From there they walked back to the festival site at Kam Tin.\n\nF. The Procession with the King of Ghosts\n\nThe procession with the King of Ghosts took place during the evening before the Great Offering to Ghosts. In the first stage the Bak-Bin villagers carried the huge image of the Daai-Si Wong through their villages. Their Naam-Bin counterparts waited near Kam Hing Wai to take over the paper image for the second part of the procession. These were 22 young men, many carrying long bamboo poles with metal ends", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211984, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 399, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "374\n\nwhich has been copied in an untitled manuscript in the possession of Mr. Dang Yu-Hing).36 Dang Kei-faan Genealogy in the Baker Collection of New Territories genealogies in the British Library.\n\n37 The elder was Dang Wing-Sau, the head of the lineage. I do not know which generation he was in. See Taga (1982:92).\n\n38 Translated in Sung (1974:177-179).\n\n39\n\n40 See table above and the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents, vol. 1.\n\nProbably Dang Hei-Seui. See Sung (1974:166-168) and a genealogy of his segment included in Hugh Baker's Collection of Genealogies.\n\n41 Patrick Hase has drawn my attention to the importance of the monastery as central to the establishment Hung-Yi's descendants in Kam Tin, just as Ling To nunnery is to the Dangs of Ha Tsuen. The monastery and the earlier temple are a major element in the fung-seui of the Pat Heung valley and Kam Tin. The rivers important to irrigation in the area all flow from the mountain on which the monastery stands.\n\n42\n\n41\n\n44 I have not tried to find further information on this man in gazetteers.\n\nSee Sung (1973:112-113) for the Hung Sing Temple.\n\nThis was one of two stories. They were thought of as alternatives although there is no contradiction between them. I shall relate the other one later.\n\n45 I was told that the Juk-Yun Am used to be at the present site of the Gwaan-Dai Temple of Shing Mun San Tsuen, and San-Sin Fu near Shui Mei.\n\n46 Two items in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 2 were probably intended for this very grave. These were among the papers of Dang Ting-sam from the year 1873. The first was a request for donations towards the establishment of a charitable grave. The second was intended for a stone inscription. There is strong evidence that the charitable grave was established before the British came, although many present-day Dangs believe that those buried in the grave were those who died fighting against the British. The jiu festival record for 1895 included the Dei-Jong Wong of Tung-Fuk Tong among the gods to be invited, and an elder in his nineties remembered seeing gam-taap jars for bones when he was very small. He deduced that those must have been the remains of people who died before 1898, because one had to wait for many years he suggested ten — until the bones could be extracted after a first burial.\n\n47 A bin-ngaak (horizontal inscribed board) presented to the Buddhist altar at its completion included ten names who were believed to be the share-holders of the Tong. They were three Wan-Guk jiu descendants of Shui Mei: Baak-Cheung, Daat-Hung, and Jik-Hing; three brothers Yat-Wa, Seui-Chuen, Gam-Wa and two of their nephews, and Baak-Yi, all descendants of Wan-Gaan; and a Hin-Yiu of Kam Tin Shi.\n\n48 Plus a inscribed stone on the ground saying Naam-mo O-Mei-To-Fat, set up to offset the bad influences that caused traffic accidents near the stone.\n\n49 Hoi-dang for a village did not always take place at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. In the Shui Mei case it took place at the Tin-Hau Temple.\n\n50 The elders made it clear that gu here does not mean “shares\".\n\n51 The subjects for these paper images were specified in the contract made with the craftsmen. The contract was included in the general record for the festival and was copied from the previous ones. But neither the organizers nor the contractor seem to have paid much attention to the details of the prescription.\n\n52 The object is probably more commonly known by the name dong 'an and is more often installed over the central area of the Taoist altar rather than in the backstage room. See", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212018, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 433, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "408\n\nin Guangdong eventually shifted back to paddy cultivation or went over to the growing of vegetables. But what is important to note is that their decisions were made only after prolonged hesitation and after having incurred repeated losses in the sugar market. It is clear in retrospect that the decline of the sugar trade since the 1890s had been an irretrievable one. Back in those times, however, it was well-nigh impossible for the average peasants, who had little information about overseas market conditions, to predict whether demands and prices would rise or fall in the coming year. When the trade recession began to set in, it was just natural for them to entertain hopes that the situation would soon improve. And more often than not, they suffered losses before giving up hope and changing their production plan. Compared with the cane-cultivators, the mulberry-growers and silkworm-rearers admittedly fared better because the boom in the silk trade was more sustained, at least so right up to the turn of the present century. Though Guangdong raw silk began to lose ground relative to the more standardized Japanese silk and the new, competitive artificial fibres (rayon) in the world market, its export did not fall off sharply. There was again a boom in the period 1919-1923 after which the price of Guangdong raw silk progressively declined although export was maintained at a fair level until the world depression set in, producing unprecedented hardship for the sericulturists who found it impossible to switch over to another product because their capital was locked up in mulberry plantations.\n\nThere is yet a further question regarding trade increase and peasant livelihood. It is beyond doubt that cash-cropping increased the peasants' income-earning opportunities when market conditions were favourable. But even assuming that such conditions prevailed, the question remains as to whether the benefits derived from such opportunities were necessarily reaped by the average peasants, be they owner-cultivators or tenants. In view of the dearth of investment capital and the lack of credit/marketing systems operating in their interest, the average peasants presumably stood at a disadvantage to those who had the necessary cash, marketing knowledge and useful connections. The merchants, in particular, fared better because they possessed what was required for operating effectively in the primary markets and for providing the connections with the secondary and terminal markets, although their fortunes would equally be affected by the vicissitudes of the market. Thus, we should direct our attention not only to the question of whether cash-cropping was profitable, but also to the question of how differential access to opportunities might have affected rural income distribution. I think", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212120, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "39\n\nKat Hing Wai and Wing Lung Wai terminated their own independent Jiao but continue to participate actively in the Jiao of the whole Kam Tin community. Still others, like Tai Wai and Tin Sam, celebrate their own Jiao festivals on the one hand but also participate as members in the Jiao celebrated by the Sha Tin Kau Yeuk (Sha Tin Village alliance). Reasons such as the Japanese occupation or economic recession given by villagers themselves cannot explain the diversities found in the New Territories. All villages experienced the Japanese occupation. With regard to economic constraints, a community like Ping Shan, though as prosperous and powerful as Kam Tin and Ha Tsuen, stopped the celebration for some unknown reason. Therefore, the continuity or discontinuity of the Jiao festival depends on the effectiveness of the festival's communal structure and organization. In Lam Tsuen, the Jiao festival is a means to reconfirm the roles of its alliances (the Luk Hap Tong [Lui He Tang] “Hall of the Six [Sc. Village Clusters] United\"). In Kam Tin and other single lineage communities, the Jiao plays an essential role in re-establishing the structure of the segmented lineage as well as in re-confirming membership in the branches. The question of whether Jiao festivals will survive after the 1997 take-over is in fact a question of whether or not there is a need to preserve such a tradition in the community.\n\nNOTES\n\nLiu Zhi-wan, \"Taiwan Taibeixian Zhonghexiang Jianjiao Jidian\" Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 33 (1972): 135-64.\n\nTanaka, Issei, Chugoku Kyoshon Saishi Kenkyu: Chihogeki no Kankyo [Village Festival in China: Background of Local Theatres] (Tokyo: Tokyo Univ. Press, 1989), 799. Some fishing villages in Hong Kong like Kau Lau Wan, Tap Mun and Kat O name their Jiao festivals \"An Long Qing Jiao\" meaning the Jiao celebrated to pacify the earth dragon.\n\nTanaka claimed that originally \"Qi An Jiao\" was celebrated only when there was need to pray for peace (Ibid., 799). However, evidence in Hong Kong, at least, shows that the festival is celebrated in a regular cycle. The shortest cycle is the Jiao of Cheung Chau where it is celebrated yearly. The longest is Sheung Shui and Shuen Wan where the Jiao is said to be celebrated once every 60 years. In some fishing villages in the New Territories, it is celebrated once every two or seven years. A five-year cycle is also practised in some agrarian communities like Tai Hang. However, a ten year cycle is the most popular in agrarian communities. Nonetheless, the method of counting also differs from one community to another. For instance, Lam Tsuen claims to celebrate the Jiao once every ten years but they actually celebrate it once in nine years. Their Jiao festival was celebrated in the following years: 1963, 1972, 1981, 1990.\n\nMr. Cheung Chi-fan (Zhang Zhi-fan), JP, and Mr. Chung Chi-leung (Zhong Ji-liang), interviewed by author, Lam Tsuen, Dec. 1, 1990. According to Dean, about 80,000 Chinese yuan was spent on the Jiao in a village in Zhangzhou, Fujian in 1986. See", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212132, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "51\n\nthe fortunes of the Nestorian church in China between 638 and 781, and a brief exposition of the major Christian doctrines. It was composed, according to the main Chinese inscription, by a Nestorian monk who had taken the Chinese name Ching-ching. From the Syriac section of the inscription we learn that his true name was Adam, and that he was the Nestorian metropolitan, or archbishop, of China.\n\nThe Chinese term used throughout the Sian tablet inscription for Christianity is Ta-ch'in Ching-chiao K4, which can be roughly translated as the 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching.' The expression appears prominently in the inscription's title, the 'Tablet of the Spread of the Syrian Brilliant Teaching in China'.\n\nThere has been considerable debate on the significance of the Chinese geographical term “Ta-ch'in'. In fact the term always remained imprecise in its application. At its most restricted, it denoted Syria and the country around Antioch. But it is also found before the Arab conquests applied to the Roman empire generally, or at least to its eastern part. Probably the best way to think of 'Ta-ch'in' is from the viewpoint of a Chinese merchant. He knew that there was a market for his silk at the Mediterranean port of Antioch. Antioch was in Ta-ch'in and to get there a man had to go through Persia. \"Ta-ch'in' was simply the region to the west of Persia, and in most contexts 'Syria' adequately conveys the geographical area in question.\n\nAs used in the Sian tablet inscription, Ta-ch'in retains its basic geographical significance as the country, however vaguely defined, to the west of Persia. Ta-ch'in is explicitly distinguished from Persia in a section of the inscription describing the Nativity:\n\n\"One person of our Trinity, the brilliant and revered Messiah, veiling and hiding his true majesty, came to earth in the likeness of man. Angels proclaimed the good news; a virgin gave birth to a saint in Syria (Ta-ch'in). A bright star told of good fortune; Persians saw its glory and came to offer gifts.\"\n\nBut whereas Ta-ch'in is sometimes used in the Sian tablet inscription in this restricted geographical sense, in other contexts it is used as a synonym for 'Christendom'. The inscription asserted, for example, that Ta-ch'in had Christian laws, fa fei ching p'u hsing JRIO.\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212136, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "55\n\nassociated with Persia, not Syria, until 745. The expression 'teaching of the scriptures' is found in three texts dating from before the middle of the eighth century. One is a Nestorian tract, the Book of Jesus the Messiah, written between 635 and 641, shortly after Reuben's arrival in China. The other two are imperial decrees, one of 638, and the other of 745. They deserve special respect because, as official documents, they were drafted with care, and used terminology with precision. The decree of 745 also provides evidence that up to 745 Christian churches were called 'Persian monasteries, and that the official name for Christianity was Po-ssu ching-chiao 'Persian teaching of the scriptures'.\n\nThe Book of Jesus the Messiah is the earliest Nestorian document to survive from Tang China. There are two, slightly different, versions of this work, and the earliest version has been shown on stylistic grounds to predate the Essay on the Charity of the Creator (one of the three chapters of the Essay on Monotheism), a work known to have been written in 641. The Book of Jesus the Messiah was therefore written within six years of Reuben's arrival in China in 635. It is probable that it is the 'scripture' which, according to the Sian tablet, Reuben translated into Chinese for the emperor T'ai-tsung to support his petition to establish a monastery in Ch'ang-an. It gives a fair digest of the Christian message, and its length is right for a document intended for submission to an emperor. If so, it was written before 638, the year in which Reuben's petition was approved.\n\nTowards the end of the text of the Book of Jesus the Messiah, after a description of the crucifixion, the following passage occurs:\n\n\"The earth quaked and the hills rocked, and the gates of all the graves in the world were opened and all the dead received life. When men saw that it was so, some still did not believe the teaching of the scriptures (ching-chiao), that the Messiah would die again, but most men did believe.\n\nIt is true that in this passage ching-chiao most probably bears its literal meaning, and refers to the Old Testament prophecies of the death and resurrection of Christ; but once this convenient term was coined, it did not take long before it suggested itself as a suitable Chinese name for the Christian religion. Christians liked to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212144, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "63\n\nmonastery by his famous general Kao Li-shih, to the temple nameboard written in Hsüan-tsung's own calligraphy, and to lavish carpets donated by Jazedbouzid. We are also told that Reuben was escorted into Ch'ang-an by Tai-tsung's chief minister Fang Hsüan-ling; that Kao-tsung appointed Reuben 'spiritual lord of the empire'; that Hsüan-tsung's five brothers, all princes, visited the monastery in the 720s; that Su-tsung refounded a number of Nestorian churches; and that Tai-tsung invited the leaders of the Nestorian church to attend his birthday feasts. These are a curiously assorted selection of honours, and the reason that they are mentioned is doubtless because complimentary scrolls or other souvenirs of these occasions were on public display in the Ch’ang-an monastery, and therefore needed some historical explanation.\n\nGiven its likely readership, the Sian tablet inscription is a masterpiece of tact and suavity. It says what it needs to say and glosses over what is inconvenient. Nothing would have made a worse impression on such an audience than a frankly evangelical message. The Book of Jesus the Messiah is evidence, if evidence is needed, that the Nestorians in Tang China did not conceal the fact that the founder of their religion had been a crucified criminal. Nevertheless, many Chinese would have found this a shocking idea, and Adam sensibly avoided mentioning the crucifixion in an inscription aimed at casual visitors to an exotic foreign monastery, and dwelled on aspects of the \"brilliant teaching\" which were more likely to appeal to his audience. The Christian cross, therefore, which was prominently displayed on the tablet, was explained as a symbol of the four corners of the earth, and the crucifixion was mentioned only indirectly.\n\nInstead, the inscription argued that the 'brilliant teaching' promoted happiness and good order. It scotched any suggestion that Christianity was a religion from some vague western Eldorado by stressing that the Messiah had been born in Ta-ch'in, just west of Persia, a country which had been precisely located by eminent Chinese scholars. It tactfully insinuated that China had been most prosperous under those emperors who had encouraged the 'brilliant teaching'. It subtly suggested that a religion which could win compliments from a succession of T'ang emperors was a religion worthy of respect, and dwelled particularly on the favours of the four most recent emperors, Hsüan-tsung, Su-tsung, Tai-tsung and Te-tsung, towards the Christian religion. Middle-aged readers would remember all of them. Finally,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212167, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "86\n\nA local Ch'ao-chou cult image seen on a secondary altar in a tiny makeshift rural temple in Ulu Sembawang in Singapore is said to represent the spirit of a nine-year-old boy who died in the late 1960s. He is the medium spirit who speaks through his aunt, providing advice for local devotees. His aunt raised the image after she found that the spirit of the boy returned to her in a dream offering to help people. The boy is known by the title of 'the Prince of the East of the Sea', Hai-tung Tai-tzu.\n\nA Cantonese Kuomintang soldier, Huang Chin-ch'uang, crossed to Taiwan in 1949 with the retreating KMT forces. He was posted to Pingtung near Kaohsiung and served with a unit near the main village on the island of Little Liuchiu where some time later he became ill and died. The people of the village, remembering his kindness and goodwill and knowing that he had no family of his own, buried him in an auspicious spot on the hillside. He became the spirit guarding the hills above the village and also gained renown for his ability to protect fishermen in danger. A shrine, a privately run temple, was built in his honour and an image of him placed on the altar where he is now known as Marshal Huang despite having been a mere private soldier.\n\nWang was a sailor left behind in Java by the great Ming explorer Cheng Ho at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His image is to be seen on a side altar in the Earth God temple at Ancol, not all that far from Jakarta, whilst tablets dedicated to him are to be seen in Chinese temples in Semarang and near Sourabaya, all on the island of Java. Local Chinese belief is divided as to whether he was pure Chinese or Javanese, and whether he was a shipwright, navigator, or senior member of Cheng Ho's crew, or merely a Javanese interpreter. They are at one, however, that Wang was a Moslem and that he married a Javanese wife and lived out his days, dying peacefully in Semarang.\n\nOf these ten male and two female spirits, all but two are represented by stylised images on altars, and they are taken from each of the main ethnic groups along the south China coast, the Cantonese, Fukienese, Hakka, Ch'ao-chou, and Hainanese.\n\nFive originated during the past fifty years, three some time during the past century, whilst four definitely developed during the Ch'ing dynasty.\n\nOnly six of the spirits still have their full names remembered, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212181, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "100 miles upriver. We sat munching our sandwiches prepared to watch the expected \"frightfulness\" when it came. It was a lovely day, the wooden benches of the launch were hard, and there was no air raid. As the shades of evening fell, we returned to the city, chastened by the thought of the edifying effect of this exhibition of Western fortitude on the watching Chinese.\n\nThe \"black-out\" system in Nanking was not like the one to which we have subsequently grown accustomed in England. There were no special arrangements to mask lights, whether on the streets or in the house. At night all lights would be turned on full, until the \"alert\" was sounded, when everything would be thrown into pitch darkness by the turning of a master switch at the power station. Some days later the plant was knocked out by several direct hits from dive bombers. The sale of electric torches soared and there was a hunt round for kerosene lamps: but the most serious consequence was to cut off radio reception. The Club came into its own, and of an evening everyone would be there seeking news and absorbing refreshment in the dim glow of flickering candles, stuck in the necks of empty bottles, of which the supply continued to grow.\n\nWe were by this time all experts in the technique of bomb dodging; even the dogs had their routine. At the first siren Sandy, the labrador, would get up from his place in the sun on the lawn and haughtily stroll into his corner behind the sofa in the drawing room. Tim, the springer pup, would continue to doze, until he heard the noise of the aircraft engines, when he would stand up, glance at the sky, and walk into a downstairs cloak room to go to earth behind a certain domestic convenience usually found in cloak rooms. Within the city wall was a game preserve, where pheasants flourished; and it was remarkable how little notice they took of the loud bark of the anti-aircraft guns nearby, but as soon as they heard the dull sound of a distant bomb-burst, the old cocks would all start to cackle angrily. It was evident that the earth tremor caused by the crump upset them more than the crash of the gunfire, though of course pheasants have very sharp hearing.\n\nOur boy was a great stand-by. He became a self-appointed expert at distinguishing the different types of plane, friend or foe, whether by the noise of their motors or by the shape of the wings, and he would announce his opinion with the complete confidence of extreme...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212184, "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": 126, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "103\n\nwould decide to defend their capital and how long it would take the Japanese to reach it. Such questions as whether the time had arrived to send up to Hankow for the winter clothes, forwarded there for safety in August, became of secondary importance. When to get out and how to get out was all that mattered. Some decided to join the ships leaving for Hankow; others decided to board the ships proceeding down river to Chinkiang, where they proposed to wait until the expected opening of the fortified boom, with which the Chinese had blocked the Yangtze lower down at Kiangyin. By the end of the month all foreigners had left, except such as had been able to arrange for accommodation on the few gunboats and commercial vessels, which were to stand-by in the Yangtze off Nanking, until the approaching wave of warfare had passed over, and except also a few newspaper correspondents and certain gallant missionaries, mostly American, who intended to remain in the city, refusing to desert the Chinese friends with whom they had so long associated.\n\nIn the opening days of December there was increasing evidence of the rapid approach of the Japanese forces. Much of the motor traffic, which during the days of the removal of the Government had roared down Chung Shan road, left by the highways for Kiangsi and Hunan; and there was a marked diminution of troop movement through the City. One by one the city gates were closed and filled in solid with earth and timber to the full depth of the wall, until only two were left ajar. The air raids increased in intensity. Throughout these trying days the excellent discipline maintained by the Chinese troops impressed onlookers. Later in Shanghai I again heard criticism of the way the troops acting under instructions burned the suburbs outside the city wall so as to provide a good field of fire for the defence of the town. Few nowadays probably remember that it was the Chinese who first gave currency to the expression \"scorched earth\".\n\nSounds of distant gun-fire were first heard on December 8th. By the following day all the members of my office staff were embarked on a ship which had been reserved for us. From the deck, on the morning of December 11th, shrapnel could be seen bursting over the South wall, on the far side of the city. Besides a number of barges and tugs, the collection of ships included two British gunboats, 'Scarab' and 'Cricket', two river steamers belonging to Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, three Standard Oil ships, two ships of the Asiatic", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212296, "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": 238, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "215\n\nrole in this “secularization” process, comparing Legge's leadership in the new Board of Education with the manner of a “born bishop” I believe his motivations must be read in the light of his postmillennial leanings. See n. 55 on postmillennialism. Also see James Legge, \"The Colony Of Hong Kong\", The Journal Of The Hong Kong Branch of The Royal Asiatic Society, op. cit., p. 188; also E. T. Eitel, Europe In China: The History Of Hong Kong From The Beginning To The Year 1882 (Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh Ltd, 1895; reprinted in Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 347, 390-394, 466.\n\nSee Gwenneth and John Stokes, Queen's College: Its History 1862-1987 (Hong Kong: Queen's College, 1987). A number of the details of the origins of the school in relation to Legge are not correct, and should be compared with my article in Ching Feng (1988), op. cit.\n\n51 Prof. Legge's participation in the initial stages of the drafting of the Somerville College rules is not mentioned in some of the more recent texts on Somerville College, but his role as a member of the council (1881-1883) is found in Somerville College Register, 1879-1959 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 272. In the minutes of the Provisional committee which later incorporated the College, Prof. Legge apparently helped to draft and support a college rule which, in its final form, read as follows: \"Prayers will be read daily in the house, and on Sundays the students will be expected as a rule to attend a place of worship chosen by themselves or their parents\"; an earlier proposal to eliminate family prayers, and a later proposal requiring instruction in the Bible provided by each House, were both voted down. It is also significant that the provisional committee set a rule that the members of the Council should include equal numbers of women and men. See the Notes of the Provisional Committee meetings for the year 1879, dated February 7, 15, and 28, held at Somerville College.\n\n* This picture is kept at the Library of the Oriental Institute at Oxford, and was recently used for the cover of T. H. Barrett's Singular Listlessness: A Short History Of Chinese Books And British Scholars, op. cit.\n\nHis reaction was primarily against the legalistic trends of Scottish Reform theology, particularly as it related to the harsher restrictions enforced on the Sabbath. At one point Legge, writing about his youthful days in Huntly, complained: \"The voice of Moses was allowed in our household too often to overpower the voice of Christ\". See Notes Of My Life, op. cit., p. 15, and James Legge, John Legge, ed., Lectures On Theology, Science, And Revelation (Papers by the late Rev. George Legge), XXII-XXIV. Still one must point out that the memorization of the Shorter Catechism left its mark in many of the themes discussed in Legge's The Religions of China. He may have rejected its ethics, but he was nursed and matured in its theological worldview.\n\n34 Legge gave his views on the sixty-fifth anniversary of the London Missionary Society, celebrated at Moorfields Tabernacle. See his \"The Land of Sinim,\" (London: John Snow, 1859).\n\n+4\n\n—\n\nThis perspective was technically supported by nineteenth-century \"postmillennialism,\" a view which generally interprets Biblical prophecies regarding the end of human history as one in which there will be no personal return of Christ. Postmillennialism claimed that God will reign on earth indirectly in a kingdom of peace established by his own people, the Church. This view normally involves the corollary that human achievements, particularly the advance of Christian civilization, would bring about the final state in which the Kingdom of God would be achieved. James Legge had been exposed to this position through the theology of his older brother, George Legge, and apparently accepted its arguments. See George Legge, Lectures on Theology, Science, and Revelation, ed. James Legge, et al., op. cit. Belief in a postmillennial view of history explains two important aspects of James Legge's academic work. First, it explains why he was concerned to locate a trace of revelation in the foundations of Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212297, "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": 239, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "216\n\nculture, which would make Chinese culture all the more accessible to the influences of Christianization. Secondly, it explains why other missionaries who considered Chinese culture to be simply pagan refused to have anything to do with a fusion of Confucianism and Christianity. In their minds, such a combination would hinder the advance of Christian civilization, obstruct the work of the Spirit of God, and ultimately be destructive of God's plan to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Legge's claim that God had left a trace in Chinese culture threatened their view of the desperate losiness of the Chinese people. In fact, Legge himself would agree with them in general on the issue of the need for salvation, but he disagreed with the missiological strategy which refused to look for any point of support for missionary activity within Chinese culture. Those who opposed Legge were in effect supporting a basic assumption: God would not employ the pagan Chinese culture for the purpose of establishing His spiritual Kingdom. This explained, from their point of view, why He did not send them any special revelation of Himself. It was precisely this latter claim that Legge vehemently denied: to overlook the Shangdi traditions in the Chinese Classics was to deny historical facts related to the destiny of the Chinese peoples.\n\nSee Confucianism in Relation to Christianity, op. cit. See for details of the comparison \"Some New Dimensions in the Study of the Works of James Legge (1815-1897); Part II\", op. cit., pp. 43ff.\n\n1\n\n57 James Legge, Christianity and Confucianism Compared in Their Teaching on the Whole Duty Of Man (London: Religious Tract Society, 1883).\n\nSH\n\nJames Legge, Christianity in China: A Rendering of the Nestorian Tablet at Si-an-fu to Commemorate Christianity (London: Trübner & Co., 1888).\n\nSV\n\nThe original twenty-four-page manuscript, entitled \"Sketch of Ho Tsun Sheen\", was written by Legge in March 19, 1872, and is kept in the South China letters of the London Missionary Society archives. It was later published as an article in a volume called Gleanings From The Mission Field (London: 1873?).\n\nMI\n\nSee The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle (January 1833), p. 34; (March 1853), pp. 121-129; (December 1853), pp. 697-707; (supplement), pp. 757-764.\n\nA\n\nThe Taoist priest Legge mentions was one who restricted his study to Laozi's Daode jing, rather than the more esoteric doctrines passed down in esoteric Taoist training. Legge found him \"more prepared than the Confucian literati to receive the message of the Gospel\". The elderly woman convert, at whose deathbed Legge sought a final testimony of trust in Christ, had been \"a professor among her country-women of Taoist superstitions\", but after becoming a Christian she had been a faithful and effective witness for Christ. See James Legge, The Religions of China, op. cit., pp. 275-276, 296-297.\n\nIn Alexander Wylie's Memorials of Protestant Missionaries (Shanghae: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867), pp. 119-121, eighteen manuscripts, pamphlets, and books are cited as prepared by Legge in Chinese. At least one of these was done with his Chinese colleague, Ho Jinshan. See Shengjing Zhengju (Proofs of the Bible) (Fuzhou: Taiping Street Gospel Hall Press, 1870). Among these texts are two pamphlets in story-telling form on the lives of Joseph and Abraham which are of particular interest. I have seen a copy of the former in the Bodleian Library, and discovered that it was written in Cantonese dialect; I suspect that the latter is done in a similar fashion, but no copy of it has yet been found.\n\nIn the context of this passage, Dr. Legge found it necessary to emphasize that he had spent as much time with Chinese people as he did with their books. Every day he claimed to spend several hours in visiting them, not only in their homes, but also in their shops. In the same recollection, he also mentions regular ministry in the Chinese prison as part of his vocation. Later on in this passage, Legge's wit also comes through:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212306, "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": 248, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "The Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company\n\n735\n\nAnother important associate company of Jardine's until the mid-1980s was 'Wharf, which was a pioneer in the development of Kowloon. The firm was established in 1886 by Paul Chater and Kerfoot Hughes. About the same time Jardine's started a wharf at West Point, but largely because of labour difficulties with Chinese lightermen Kowloon Wharf and Jardine's Wharf amalgamated. In 1887, they acquired the P&O (Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company) wharf at West Point although this was later sold,\n\nSir Paul Chater\n\nIt is appropriate here to say something about Anglophile Catchick Paul Chater, born of Armenian parents in 1846, who came to Hong Kong from Calcutta at the age of 18. He started work as a clerk in the Bank of Hindustan, China and Japan, but soon branched out on his own as an exchange and bullion broker. Chater later became a business associate of the Sassoons, who were Jewish merchants. Chater's interests were many and varied. In addition to Hong Kong Land and Kowloon Wharf they included substantial real estate holdings. Hong Kong Bank, Dairy Farm, Star Ferry, Hong Kong Tramways, and Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels. Chater was also a pioneer in the 57 acre Praya reclamation scheme, in Central District, which included Des Voeux and Connaught Roads, and is now one of the most valuable areas of land on earth.\n\nAlthough he was sometimes accused of showing indecent regard for Royalty and all things British, including cricket, others believed, \"Where Chater goes today Jardine's follow tomorrow\". Venturesome in business, few men have contributed so much to Hong Kong as he did, and he worked closely with the British for several decades. One of the busiest roads in Central, as well as Chater Garden and Catchick Street, is named after him. As a self-made man with considerable foresight he was generous, and he became a public benefactor and patron of the arts. Unfortunately, the Chater collection of paintings was lost during World War II. Sir Paul, who served on both the Legislative and Executive Councils, died in 1926 an honoured and respected man.\n\nButterfield and Swire\n\nAnother of the great Hongs, Swire's, is Jardine's competitor, even", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212320, "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": 262, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "239\n\nBoswell (1815 to 1860), a graduate of Edinburgh University, who set up in private practice (previously owned by Doctor Anderson) in Macau in 1845. He was a physician and his wife, Elizabeth (née Stedman), joined him the following year. Watson was also an amateur artist and a friendship with the famous George Chinnery lasted from 1845 to Chinnery's death in 1852.\n\nWatson wrote to his sister in Scotland, in 1848, about Macau:\n\n“Counting ourselves, there are just four families and one or two Americans and French. There are Portuguese of course, but I do not class them as foreigners as it is a Portuguese settlement.”\n\nLife out East for Watson meant 14 years of hard work, ill health, and a constant struggle to make enough money for him and his family to go home. Nevertheless, in Macau he was surrounded by a happy family; he lived (as he phrased it) in a “sweet abode the prettiest spot on earth with a spacious open terrace and a wonderful view.”\n\nWatson sold his practice to a Doctor B. Kane (it took time to dispose of it as Macau was on the decline), and he moved to Hong Kong in 1856 where he became part owner of the Hong Kong Dispensary. His rent for a house on Queen's Road then was $1,200 a year. Watson was also involved with the Victoria Dispensary but this closed in 1857 because of lack of business. It appears there were too many British doctors competing for custom. Watson was said to operate the most successful practice in the Colony.\n\nIn 1857, he was closely involved when patriots of China attempted to poison Europeans by putting arsenic in the bread at the Ah Lum Bakery. He managed to rush home to warn his family before they had eaten breakfast. Fortunately, because the amount of arsenic was excessive, it induced vomiting and nobody died. To the intense annoyance of the European community Ah Lum was acquitted for lack of evidence.\n\nWatson sent his family back to Britain in 1857, and he himself returned to Scotland by the overland route (by ship to Port Suez,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212351, "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": 293, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "270\n\nthe rights over it. However, the Yuen clan is weak, and was not able to maintain its right to the road at the landing place. The Tsoi clan of a neighbouring village snatched this right for themselves for many years. In an attempt to recover their rights, the Yuen clan allied themselves for approximately twenty years with the dominant clan of Sham Chun, the Cheung clan. The road at the landing place was eventually taken back from the Tsoi clan, but it was not returned to the Yuen clan\n\nthe Cheung clan kept it for themselves.\n\n―\n\n―\n\nFifteen further years passed. The Yuen clan at this point allied themselves with their erstwhile enemies, the people of the Tsoi clan, in order to advance their claims against the Cheung clan jointly with them.\n\nThe next development was, that the two allied clans jointly built a new market, immediately next to the landing place. This was about twenty minutes walk from the old market. The old market was the property of the Cheung clan, and it was hoped that the new market would damage the old one. This was, four years later, the occasion of serious conflict.\n\nThe allied clans had to prepare themselves against an attack from the Cheung clan during the building of the new market. They built their market within the protection of a small fortification, surrounding it, on the side facing the old market, with an earth wall. At the same time, the old market defended itself with a long wall. Anyone passing the two markets could see that a village war was on the way here.\n\nBoth sides at this stage collected their strength for the conflict, until, in the Spring of this year, the Yuen and Tsoi clans started the fight against the Cheung clan in deadly earnest. They had, in particular, procured a cannon which was big enough for them to use to fire into the houses of the Cheungs. The Cheungs also had a cannon, but it was smaller than that of their enemies, and caused little damage. The hostilities began in March of this year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212355, "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": 297, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "274\n\nman, and the Tsoi clan four, to the authorities as being responsible for the murder of the man who fell in the ditch. This, however, is only a formality. Everyone knows that the District Mandarin will be only too happy to exchange these men for an eloquent sum of money. It is sad to be forced to see in action how the best of these Chinese officials are blind in the face of corruption of this type.\n\nThe total cost of this village war was more than sixty thousand dollars. This money will have to be found by a stiff payment from every person affected. The parties will be reduced to such extreme poverty that it will be many years before they can recover. It is as well that the bone of contention is removed from the clans.\n\nHowever, as it is said \"There can be no peace, where men do not sing of the love of Christ\". May that love soon be sung throughout this fruitful valley of Sham Chun!\n\nI greet you with the deepest respect and affection,\n\nYours,\n\nG. Reusch\n\n8th July, 1875.\"\n\nThe 1924 aerial photograph of Sham Chun, and the War Department map drawn up from it, show a broad earth-wall in the position suggested by Reusch, and this is shown on the Map. This probably represents the earth-wall of 1875. If so, the \"New Market\" of 1871 was not a success. Although the roads from the south (Kowloon and Yuen Long) ran through the centre of the site, the site was not as well sited as was the \"Old Market\", being further from the nodal point of the road system in the area. It was better located for the river trade, but only so long as the \"New Market\" and the landing place were in the same hands. Once the landing place had been handed over to the She Hok and to the Tung Ping Kuk which ran the She Hok, and which was dominated by the Cheungs, the \"New Market\" lost the advantages it gained from proximity to the river. By 1924, there were only a few buildings within the earth-wall\n\n—\n\na", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212381, "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": 323, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "300\n\nin Singapore but not elsewhere, and the temple keeper was unwilling to offer any further information. A year or so later under a little pressure he revealed that he, personally, called them White Crane Mothers (Bai He Mu).\n\nRecently his son, who has now set up his own establishment, was more forthcoming. He began by saying that he did not agree with his father's description; the images were neither spirits (shen) nor demons (kuei) but were rather a substitute for the individual human (Ti-shen). Such images were carved by him for people who brought the description of the image required written, usually on red paper, by a spirit medium. He claimed that the practice was not unique to Hokkiens (people from the southern coastal province of Fukien) and that he had heard of it ‘all over China' including Taiwan (which is predominantly Hokkien speaking). He himself is a Hokkien though his clients in Singapore included local Ch'ao-chou, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese people.\n\nThe son explained that a living human may suffer from an unidentifiable ailment and having been to a western trained doctor and consulted a Chinese physician or herbalist, neither of whom has been able to diagnose the cause, in desperation he consults a temple spirit medium who, in a trance, discovers the cause, usually an 'unpaid debt from a previous life. Immediately after death souls are judged on the misdeeds done during their lifetime on earth and after purging their sins they are reborn. Occasionally misdeeds are missed and only discovered after the individual has been reborn, hence the ailment as punishment. The spirit medium is tasked to discover the identity in his or her previous life of the human now suffering from the unknown ailment and to record his or her likeness in that previous existence which will then be carved into an image. The surname of the individual in his or her previous life is also recorded on the reverse of the image. This image is unique to the family of the individual now alive, almost always with an entirely different surname to the one of the previous incarnation, and is kept on the family altar. It is never placed on a public altar for public reverence. After a ritual performed by the spirit medium the image is considered to house the spirit of the living individual with the ailment but with the identity of the previous incarnation, and it is expected that the spirit now residing within the image will absorb the 'unpaid debt' lifting the punishment from the living individual.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212384, "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": 326, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "303\n\nmiddle for the upper part of the grinder to turn on.\n\nThey then filled the baskets with a kind of very fine earth called \"Wong Nei\" (黃泥) (which contains no sand grains) which was available only in some places like Au Tau (凹頭) in Yuen Long. Kei Lun Wai (雞卵圍) in Tuen Mun and Pak Fan Chin (白粉田) in Lam Tsuen. They crushed and tamped the earth with wooden poles until the basket was packed. On the surface of the earth they then drew some geometrical patterns according to which the grinder teeth (*) would be placed. The grinder teeth were made of bamboo strips two to three inches long and 2/3 inch wide. These were made from a different type of bamboo. The bamboo teeth were inserted vertically into the earth with a wooden hammer according to the pattern drawn on the earth surface. When all the bamboo teeth were fixed side by side with one another into the earth, the worker had to make sure that there was no room for the teeth to move. If the teeth still had room to move, they either set more teeth into the earth or filled the grinder with very fine silt and packed it with the wooden hammer again until the teeth stayed very firm. They usually finished the work of the lower part of the husk remover first and then started work for its upper part. A hole would be reserved in the middle to accommodate the axis. It took about three days' time of two skilled workers to produce a husk-grinder.*\n\nRiden Sung Chi-Pui\n\nTHE BRITISH MERCHANTMAN “NORNA”\n\nOn the 24th of April 1862, the Hong Kong China Mail reported that the sailing barque Norna had been wrecked on an uninhabited atoll in the Caroline Islands. The facts surrounding the rescue of her crew highlight the tenacity and application of the naval authorities of the China Station in Hong Kong.\n\nThe Norna was built in Sunderland in 1851 and, although no complete details of her exist today, it is known that she was barque rigged and measured 460 tons gross. Her length was about 100 feet.\n\n* See Plates 10-13.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212399, "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": 341, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "318\n\nThe origins of the Grand Council, which served as the highest executive body under the Emperor in the Qing government from the first quarter of the eighteenth century, are clarified for the first time. It was not created one day through act of parliament. Nor was it the accidental survivor of a military planning group as its Chinese name might suggest. Bartlett shows the transformation from direct imperial personal rule (Yongzheng's ad hoc arrangements of the Military Finance Section, the High Officials in Charge of Military Strategy, and the palace memorial system) to joint monarchical conciliar administration (Qianlong's regularization of the Grand Council). The development of an inner court to offset the rigidity and limitations of the outer court is traced, and we are shown how the Qianlong Emperor adapted to the increasingly complex demands of ruling China. The Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722) was brilliant, but could rely on raw Manchu force to rule; Yongzheng and Qianlong had to use more \"Confucian\" means, at the same time surviving the factionalism of the imperial family.\n\nBartlett has not simply used the Qing archives to sketch political events, or to mark the stages of development of the Grand Council. She has used provenance to enlighten us on process, and has gained an understanding of the whole range of communication that passed between Emperor, grand councillors and provincial officials. This system has been researched before, but no one has gone into such detail on the forms of communication and the act of decision making. The grand councillors knew that control of information flow led to control of decisions. As the palace memorial system expanded from a secret, personal channel between the Emperor and a few officials to a broader, prioritized but more impersonal avenue, the councillors and their clerks injected themselves into the process. Before long they perused memorials, drafted summaries and proposed imperial replies (see, for example, pp 98-101).\n\nThe tension between Emperor and officials, and among officials, was conceptualized by Joseph Levenson in his trilogy Confucian China and its Modern Fate. Bartlett brings Levenson's provocative concept down to earth, and shows the conflict and cooperation between emperor and councillor, and inner and outer court officials. On the dichotomy of an all-powerful Emperor and officials with independent legitimacy, we are told that the outer court ran according to an administrative code. Although the monarch could probably", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212573, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "107\n\nis unacceptable to many Chinese. In China, therefore, organs are often obtained from executed criminals.\n\nIn this study the three sisters cried bitterly when informed an autopsy would be carried out on their mother's body. They were relieved when the authorities relented. The three blamed themselves because the mother was alone at the time of the heart attack. A soothsayer, however, said that nobody could have saved her. If she had been taken straight to hospital at the onset she would have died just the same. Because of her age and the hour of death it was prophesied the deceased would go to heaven.\n\nThat the dead person had not eaten that evening before death was construed as a good omen. Missing the meal signified she has left everything behind for her children. However, she was in the habit of drinking from a special mug. This had disappeared. It was assumed she had taken it with her. That three months before death she had given a friend a piece of jade and had told her: 'I may not be here for your next birthday,' was repeated frequently by mourners.\n\nIn her early thirties, influenced by eldest daughter, mother had been baptised a Catholic. But the attractions of a combination of native Taoism, Buddhism and folk religion were too great. By the 1960s, mother was no longer practising Christianity. She never expressly told relatives why she left the Church. It was probably because, to a very Chinese person who spoke no English, Catholicism was too western; in spite of the Church adopting a few Chinese customs, such as three bows to a deceased's photograph and the 'last glance' at a funeral. Many quote the saying: 'One Christian more is one Chinese less.'\n\nA few hours after death, the mother's spirit, which left the body as visible vapour, was in limbo wandering about'. Depending upon deeds performed on earth there are six possible 'destinations': hell, heaven, and becoming an animal, a ghost, a human again or a buddha. Everybody possesses a number of spirits, one of which first descends into hell (described as dark and yin) to await sentencing by 10 judges. There the spirit is tried, punished and purged. Those who have committed excessive evil spend longer in purgatory before going to heaven (seen as bright and yang). People can later be reborn as children, or, if sinful, as animals.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212575, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "109\n\nbasket-like container. A pail of water sprinkled with fresh pomelo leaves is sometimes left on the spot where death occurred and a pair of new trousers (these pun with ‘rich' in Chinese) with a blue sash may be draped over the pail. As a more down-to-earth disinfectant, sulphur is burned.\n\nIn 1840s Hong Kong, the dying were often abandoned on hillsides, in open spaces or matsheds, although the Government tried to track down offenders.\"2 Later an I ts'z (#), a public ‘ancestral hall', was constructed. In places like Cheung Chau Island a 'death house' (something like the hospice of today), established in 1878, still stands where the very ill were taken.\" There was another at Tai O. A similar building now in ruins, built by the Kai Fong (neighbourhood welfare association), existed on Peng Chau Island where the destitute could die in peace.\" This was temple-like in appearance with three rooms, one for the sick, one for the dying and one for the caretaker. It also contained an image of the Lord of Purgatory, a Buddha who saves souls. Avoidance of death was not necessarily because of callousness.\" Many Chinese fear spirits of the dying or the dead will possess the living. This was why, of those that took their own lives, many preferred violent, bloody suicides, involving pain on the doorstep of their tormentors, so the unfortunate had the right to haunt the oppressors.\n\n16\n\nThe Tung Wah Hospital was established in 1870, ostensibly to replace the above I Ts'z. It also provided free burials for paupers. Originally sited at Kennedy Town, it moved in 1899 to Sandy Bay where the present 'coffin home', on a 100,000 square foot site, provides transshipment sometimes from overseas to China and storage of bones, bodies in coffins or ashes in urns. The remains of the Tung Wah Director, who was instrumental in building the present home, have rested there since 1906. There is capacity for the bones of about 900 persons. Only about 200 remain at present. Some relatives spread bones of relatives out on sheets of paper to air. Some remains await an auspicious day to be interred. Many emigrants now take ashes of loved ones with them overseas so they can be properly tended.\n\nUp to the 1950s, when people did pass away at home in urban Hong Kong, bamboo ramps were frequently erected so coffins could be brought direct, head first ('head should face heaven, feet should face earth': in England it is feet first), from upper floor balconies or windows to the ground.\" With narrow stairways and corridors, and coffins larger than in the West, knocking and scraping walls were considered harbingers of 'death tapping at doors'. With the construction of multi-storey", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212581, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "115\n\nmanifestion of poverty to symbolise the family has sold everything to pay for an elaborate funeral. Two hanging bands of the attire are left of different lengths to imply the mourner is distraught and does not know how to tie it properly. Women do not make-up.\n\nFor Chinese Christian funerals family mourners wear black gowns, but it is not a 'good' colour as it absorbs bad luck. When Chinese wear a black necktie they often remove it as soon as they can after the service.\n\nThe dead person in this study, who for major events such as birthdays used the Chinese calendar, knew she was born in the year of the ram but she was never sure in which year of the western calendar she was born. Because she used Chinese reckoning she was one year 'older' than if she had used the Gregorian calendar. In addition, on death, three years are usually added, 'one each for heaven, earth and mankind (天 · 人 · 地). A little subterfuge regarding age seems justified. It increases importance at one's destiny. Emphasis is placed on prolongation of age and symbols of longevity are many. They include the peach, crane and tortoise. The God of Longevity is sometimes depicted riding a deer. Because in this study the deceased was around 70 it was described as a 'happy funeral' (喜事).\n\nBy midnight all had left the funeral parlour except the three daughters, two granddaughters and two amahs (maids) who kept vigil, taking naps on the floor or on chairs. In the past gongs were banged throughout the night to keep away evil spirits. Noise restrictions today prohibit this. Although all-night vigils are not common in England now, they are still practised in eastern European countries and among those, for example, of Lithuanian descent in Scotland. Wakes are also held in Ireland, often accompanied by card playing, drinking and jollifications in an adjoining room.\n\nFuneral Day\n\nThe same as the previous day visitors paid respects, some early, shortly afterwards leaving for work. Later, the hall filled for the service. Day and time were important, as with other events concerning mourning. The Chinese Imperial Calendar and Almanac (usually known as Tung Sing(通勝) meaning 'know everything book') was consulted. Some editions of this sell a million copies a year. Dating back before 2205 BC, it is said to be the oldest, continuous publication in the world.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212584, "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "118\n\nThis obelisk, now in the Government Cemetery, stood then at the junction of Queen's Road East and Leighton Road. It commemorates officers and men of HMS Vestal who, in 1847, were killed, drowned or died in Hong Kong.\n\nCremation\n\nIn this study cremation took place two days after the funeral service because the previous day was inauspicious. Only close family members sat in the hearse accompanying the body to Cape Collinson Crematorium. The ceremony was simple. All relations made three bows, each of the three sisters poured one cup of rice wine which was placed together with food on the altar. The dead person's 'spirit shrine', made of rattan and paper, was burned. The family then crossed back over the Harbour to the Buddhist Hall to pay respects. There a group of lay nuns, who addressed one another as 'brother' (兄弟), chanted mantras.\n\nAlthough until AD 1370 bodies of Buddhist laity were frequently cremated3, the Han Chinese have a long tradition of burial with human remains returning to nature and affecting feng shui. The body should remain in contact with earth, it is traditionally believed. The final resting place should have good soil, luxuriant trees and grass. This belief is still strong in some quarters. To beat an April 1st, 1993, deadline, after which all corpses in Jiangsu Province have been cremated, 40 old people committed mass suicide in March so that they could receive a traditional burial.\n\nBurial has been considered more desirable by Han Chinese than the custom of many Muslim Chinese minority groups with bodies being eaten by vultures.32 The Book of Changes (I Ching) records that in primitive society Han Chinese left their dead in the wilderness, covered with leaves. Later, when they came to believe souls went on to another world, they began to protect bodies by placing them in graves.\n\n34\n\n33\n\nHong Kong, like China, has for several years campaigned in favour of cremation. Feudal superstitions have had to be overcome. In 1958/59, only 1.65 per cent of corpses were cremated. In 1989/90, the figure stood at 70 per cent. Because of chronic land shortage there are few cemeteries in Hong Kong where the body can rest in perpetuity. When buried they are usually exhumed after six years (times have varied from five to 10 years). The bones (designated yang, but flesh is yin)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212589, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "the Buddhist hall. After this was finished close mourners changed into everyday, brightly coloured clothes. A meal was held in a restaurant. There were seven courses. About 50 people attended. Meat was served.\n\nThe immediate family members then went home and took a second bath with pomelo and wampee (variant spelling wampi) leaves to purify the water. Lucky packages were opened. Besides money they contained pieces of hibiscus, foo paak (†), a homonym also meaning wealth or riches. Another packet contained, in addition to money, a needle and thread, and a lady's hairpin, described as kat lei ( ). This is interpreted as pierce or sharp, also as lucky or profit. Anything that could bring bad luck, such as black objects, had been burned. Things that were brought home, for good luck, included white mourning shoes and white attire. These were known as tsoi paak (ĦĦ ), for ‘good luck'. The large photograph used at services was later hung in the dead woman's home. Some maintain it should be packed away or it can bring bad luck.\n\nAshes\n\nThe day after the fifth tsat the immediate relatives went to the funeral parlour to collect the ashes. Everyone expressed pleasure that these were 'fairly white'. They are often blackish. There was a short ceremony. Joss sticks and ‘gold bars' were burned, together with a rosette made up with yellow papers with blessings printed on them.\n\nAt Ching Chung Koon (Temple) permission to enter was requested from the two door (earth) gods. Everyone bowed three times. An orange was placed on each shrine. The niche selected two weeks earlier to hold the ashes of the dead woman, together with another alongside for her husband, was not too high so it was accessible. His remains were moved from another niche. The cost for each, in 1988, was $10,800, increased from $600 in 1966. (Business is thriving and extensions are continually being built to the columbarium.) The mother's niche number is '17' which can be interpreted, 'certainly you will get it.' The father's niche is '18', read as 'definitely will prosper'.\n\nThe mourners bowed three times to 'spirit neighbours' of father and mother and burned single incense sticks in all vases in that room. An effort was made not to offend and not sit on ledges in front of other", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212590, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "124\n\nniches. If this happened, one bowed and apologised aloud to the spirits.\n\nThe ceremony was conducted by a Taoist brother who carefully poured the ashes through a white cloth folded in the neck of a funnel. The deceased's gold bracelet together with a piece of jade were also deposited in the urn. The top was tied on with red ribbon. Her name was written on the outside of the urn with red paint, 'free hand' (without butt of hand resting on anything). The Taoist painted fine characters although he professed to have had little schooling. After mourners bowed three times flowers were arranged in vases. Paper rosettes were burned. Also, two tables were placed in front of the two niches and a feast, including fruit, cakes and rice wine, was laid out. The two urns, each covered in white cloth, were then inserted in their respective niches, the doors were sealed with plaster and more joss sticks and yellow rosettes were burned. The six mourners then lined up, recited Buddhist prayers and received lucky packets. It was necessary for the Chinese candles to burn out before bowing goodbye and leaving the columbarium for a late, 4.00 pm, vegetarian 'lunch'.\n\nSixth Tsat\n\nAlthough official ceremonies ended with the fifth, the family paid a further visit to Ching Chung Koon, where the ashes are kept, on the sixth tsat. Joss sticks in clusters of three (one each for heaven, earth and mankind), paper 'gold bars' and a large rosette made up of coloured paper were burned. These eight-inch squares of yellow paper had been 'blessed' by an old woman. She meticulously burnt a hole in the centre of each single sheet with a joss stick. Also, single joss sticks were placed in all vases for other souls in that room of the temple.\n\nCharity\n\nAt this stage, the three daughters were informed by a fortune teller that, for their mother to enter kik lok shai kaai (extremely happy world) it would help if they performed some charitable deeds. A donation of $2,000 was made to a poor, elderly watchman to help with medical expenses. 'Give to a charitable organisation, with heavy overheads, there is no telling where the money goes,' one daughter said.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212594, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "128\n\nAlso, many who did not believe in reincarnation did believe in supernatural powers and in retribution. Namely, that one would be punished later for sins committed on earth. In the funeral in this case study, the three daughters and the two granddaughters all believed in reincarnation.\n\nConclusions\n\nIn his long, complicated, Italian poem, I Sepolcri (Graves), Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827) looks at death, the after life and how the dead are represented on earth. We see ourselves in the tombs we erect, he maintains. What is the cult of death? It began when civilisation began. When homo sapiens ceased to be animal and 'honoured its urns'. There is conflict between erecting tombs and the law of nature which recycles bodies back into the earth's system, Foscolo continues: \"The stink of the corpse mixes with the smell of incense. In Italy, importance is attached to cypress and cedar trees which stay green with fragrances to record to eternity those who have gone. In England, these are replaced by aged yews and in the Far East sometimes by frangipani.\n\nFunerals, along with food, festivals and weddings tell us much about a nation's culture. Former British Prime Minister William Gladstone (1809-98) said: \n\nShow me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws and their loyalties to high ideals. \n\nCertainly the 'cult of death' is complex and fairly clearly defined for the Chinese who, with their ancient civilisation, rich in folklore, have been 'honouring urns' in a similar manner back as long ago as the Chou Dynasty (1122-255 BC), although there are slight regional variations. The Chinese, more than any other people, are obsessed with the dead.48 There is a fear of the dead. There is a continuing relationship between the dead and the living. Rituals demonstrate, resolve and change situations. Money, goods and food are 'dispatched' to the deceased. In return, from ancestors, the living expect luck, wealth, moral order, fertility and health. If punishment is meted out this is accepted. Feng shui plays its part.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212596, "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": 150, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Topley asks whether the poor trace hardships, basically, to lack of money. Cash can solicit and secure worldly and spiritual favours, advantages as well as goods.” At a funeral there is abundant, cheap, 'mock' money which mourners 'remit' to the deceased. The dead can be 'looked after' in a style not often possible on earth.\n\nOther ritual ingredients are belief in supernatural powers making up driving forces of the universe, whether these be magic, the complementary powers of yin and yang, ‘dragon vapours' (lung hei) of feng shui, fuk hei (divine blessings) or other superstitions. They must be handled correctly so no one is alienated.\n\nThere are, nevertheless, inconsistencies. If even the average Chinese does appear to believe that everything depends upon impersonal whims and pulsation of feng shui through the universe he does not resign himself entirely to fate. The contradiction is that most Chinese display a strong motivation to achieve wealth, power and prestige. Ability and education are valued. To complicate the issue further there is the Buddhist karmic belief that one's afterlife depends upon morality and performing good deeds on earth. So with a broad streak of pragmatism, if, with ancestor worship, forefathers do not provide adequately for present generation - even though forebears' bones have turned white instead of black - the living will still try to achieve objectives in other ways, such as by following the Confucian work ethic. But the need to perform the will of the gods, if one wishes to be saved, is also stressed, although ascetic practices and abstaining from worldly comforts appeal to a limited number of Chinese. But effort on its own is not enough. Something else, something special, is required.\n\nWith Chinese civilisation going back to the Shang Dynasty (circa 1600 to 1100 B.C.) beliefs do not usually change overnight. Yet, as explained in this paper, a number of Hong Kong funeral customs have altered significantly since World War II, such as acceptance of cremation and streamlining of funerary formalities. In many ways, Hong Kong Chinese think differently to westerners and even to their mainland cousins. Yet, if a European reflects after attending a Chinese funeral, many aspects are very meaningful. These can help a westerner strengthen Christian beliefs.\n\nEven those Hong Kong Chinese who do not profess a faith still usually engage Taoist or Buddhist monks to perform last rites. The author recalls\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212599, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "133\n\n21\n\nHugh Baker, 'Hell Bank Notes', Ancestral Images, A Hong Kong Album (1979), pp 105-108\n\n✰\n\n21\n\nHugh Baker, 'Nuns', More Ancestral Images, op. cit (1980), pp 13-16\n\nTin Sau Ho Coffin Shop, Hollywood Road, visited by author 20th July 1992\n\nThe Art of Death 1500 to 1800, exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum early 1992\n\n24\n\n09 Hugh Baker, 'Marsh', Ancestral Images Again, A Third Hong Kong Album (1981), pp 109-112; Frena Bloomfield, 'The Chinese Almanac', The Occult World of Hong Kong (1980), pp. 100-2, and 'The Chinese Almanac', The Peninsula Group Magazine 13 (Hong Kong, April 1978), pp 66-71.\n\n26 Hugh Baker, 'Mourning', Hong Kong Images. People and Animals (1990), pp. 121-3\n\n21 T.C. Lai, op. cit. pp 152-3\n\n28 Ingrams, loc. cit\n\n29 Carl T. Smith, 'The Emergence of a Chinese Elite', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol 11 (1971), pp 74-115 (p 98).\n\n30 S.M. Bard, Study of Military Graves and Monuments Hong Kong Cemetery (1991), pp. 16 (B), 26 and 27\n\n32\n\n33\n\nJ. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese (first published 1903), p 166\n\nDiscussion between author and David Shu Tat-koon, feng shui master, 7 August 1992\n\nHugh Baker, 'Burial', Ancestral Images, op. cit. (1979), pp 17-20\n\n34 Hong Kong Government Urban Services Department / Urban Council Annual Reports\n\n3 Hugh Baker, 'Exhumation', Ancestral Images, op. cit (1979), pp 110-104\n\nJJ Hugh Baker, 'Exhumation', Ancestral Images, op. cit (1979), pp 110-104\n\n37\n\nFrena Bloomfield, 'Fung Shui: Chinese Earth Magic', The Occult World of Hong Kong (1980), pp. 103-114; and Ernest J. Eitel, Feng Shui (Singapore, 1984).\n\n38 Discussion between author and David Shu Tat-koon concerning his own theories, 7 August 1992\n\n39\n\nIn other cases the author has been told of dead people's spirits returning home three, seven, ten or other periods after death\n\n40 All dead persons except infants and wandering strangers are entitled to a spirit tablet\n\n41\n\nVisit by Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, to Sang Woo Loong Art Advertising Model Work Company, 28 Western Street, 10 December 1988, second visit by author to same establishment 20 July 1992.\n\n42\n\n43\n\nHugh Baker, 'Earth God', Ancestral Images, op. cit. (1979), pp 1-4\n\nHugh Baker, 'Mourning', Ancestral Images Again, op. cit (1981), pp 101-104. Laurence G. Thompson, op. cit. pp 54 and 55.\n\n44 Leung Chor-on, 'Blessings Are Not For All', The Hong Kong Anthropologist, no 5 (April 1992), pp. 26-28 (p. 27)\n\n45 Rubie S. Watson, 'Remembering the Dead: Graves and Politics in Southeastern China', eds James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski, Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, op. cit., pp. 203-227", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212619, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "153\n\nEve dinner. We parted the next day as our ways lay in different directions.\n\nAfter completion of the reconnaissance I returned to Shangjao, where General Ku Chu Tung again very kindly accommodated me at his personal headquarters. Michael and I and the Chinese officers attached to us had our own little mess, and General Ku sent his own cook to prepare our meals, a signal courtesy which was much appreciated. Soon after my return I was delighted to hear that the two British Army Liaison Officers, had also escaped from Shanghai, with a third companion. They passed through shortly after on their way to Chungking. On December 7th they had had to go to earth, as the Japanese had raised a hue and cry after them: however, with the assistance of Chinese friends they finally made their way out past the wire. I hope one day the account of their adventures will appear in print,\n\nThe Japanese in Shanghai did not commence to round up Allied civilian foreigners for concentration in camps until the autumn of 1942, and the concentration was not completed until the spring of 1943. The foreigners were permitted to continue in occupation of their houses and to keep servants, though the limited funds released from the banks did not allow of living at the same standards as previously. To economise there was a tendency for households, or messes of bachelors, to amalgamate. Quite a few foreigners lived in houses outside the barbed-wire barrier and for the first few weeks one could pass in and out of the gates on the few roads which led through the barrier by claiming that one lived outside. During this period, Jim, an English missionary who spoke the Shanghai dialect well got out. He was waiting with Mac at Chin Ya when we returned there in March. In the course of time the Japanese brought a system of passes into use, and the issue of special passes to persons wishing to visit friends outside was restricted. Nevertheless, the arrangements were such as to provide plenty of opportunity for those who wished to pass through the barrier. At the worst one could crawl under the wire at night, when the sentries were mostly withdrawn to their main posts. But few young Britons seized the opportunity to escape while they could. In the upshot more Americans got away than British, though American residents only numbered about one third as many as the British, of whom some 5,000 were interned, including of course a considerable proportion of women and children.\n\nA small party of three American journalists escaped at about this time through Hangchow. I did not meet them. The next escape to be reported", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212629, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "163\n\nJapanese planes were reported to be patrolling the road. We rolled back the hood from the rear half of the lorry and posted two sentries, one looking forward and the other aft, to sound the alarm should any planes be seen. The stores made such a rattle that in the cab you could not hear a shout from the rear, and so a string was led forward and tied to my wrist where I sat next to the driver. Three sharp tugs meant: \"Plane in sight, stop and get out quick\". Our lorry was always full of odd people, besides our own party, as in those days of transportation shortage there would be a crowd of passengers, civilian and military, male and female, at all stopping places, hoping for a lift. The trouble was that their idea of when the lorry was fully loaded and ours seldom agreed, and they would continue to pile in with their bundles long after, in our opinion, the safety margin had been passed.\n\nThe thought of our cargo made my hair stand on end. We had broken every safety rule inscribed in the manuals of the Royal Ordnance Corps. In addition to four large drums of petrol, we had a ton of ammonal, several boxes each of primers and detonators, some Mills and 69 grenades, rolls of instantaneous and detonating fuse, and a number of odd boxes of other types of explosive, such as gelignite and 808; each of these materials should have been segregated, and here they were all higgledy-piggledy with a quantity of shovels, picks, axes, and other metal implements jangling in the steel body of our lorry, and only too liable to spark. Our casual passengers liked to smoke and in their delightfully inconsequential way could not understand why we should object. It was a situation that would have pleased the \"Mad Hatter\", and the climax came when after a particularly bad bump over a pot hole one of the petrol drums burst a seam. The alarm signal was given and I pulled up in quick time to learn that the trouble was not a hostile plane but to meet a reek of petrol that spread a mile and to see the whole of our cargo soaked in the precious fluid which poured away to the earth from a corner of the vehicle. It did not take me long to turn off the engine. The members of our party jumped out and seized any handy can or bucket to catch the jetting petrol; others threw out part of the cargo so that we could reach the drum, which we eventually succeeded in turning over with the burst seam on the upper side. Having escaped disaster thus far, I ordered the whole of the party well away from the truck till the cargo had dried out and the spilt petrol had evaporated.\n\nOn the fourth day a van full of American aviators passed us. They were some of General Doolittle's men, who had parachuted into China", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212631, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "165\n\nrain had caused a number of minor landslides. At several places large rocks lay across the road, but we were able to move these sufficiently to allow the lorry to pass; then about midday we were told the road further on was entirely blocked by a heavy landslide. At the village nearest to the scene we stopped to collect as many labourers as Michael could get the headman to round up, and then went on to investigate the damage. We found it would be possible in time to clear the road, except for a large rock about the size of a billiard table. We could only blow it up, unfortunately we had not packed our lorry to meet such a contingency and, of course, the primers were stowed under everything else. However, in time the necessary material was collected and a Chinese engineer officer, a casual passenger, and I got down on our stomachs in the mud to scoop out a hole under the rock in which to place the charge. After you place a charge in a hole it is necessary to tamp it well with earth to ensure that the blast does not merely blow back along the hole you have made. Our first attempt was not very successful as the tamping was inadequate and most of the blast came back through the hole and blew the tamping, like a shrapnel fougasse, out over the countryside. For the second shot we used a larger charge and tamped it better, and on returning after the explosion found the rock shattered. Willing hands had soon rolled the pieces over the hillside, and we set to with shovels to clear the rest. It was late afternoon when we reached the Tsien Tang river ferry, to find that a regiment of soldiers had arrived on the opposite bank and had seized all junks and ferry boats for use in crossing. The invaluable Michael went over to see the commanding officer, who readily released one of the ferry boats which was sent over for us. The Japanese were only a few kilometres down river with a large fleet of junks and motor launches, and I was very glad when we had successfully negotiated the crossing. That day, owing to the various delays with which we had met, we were only able to cover about 100 kilometres.\n\nWe stopped for the night at a village, where we had previously made friends when passing through. All the lights were out, and the village seemed deserted; the military police told us that only that afternoon they had opened fire on some farmers, whom they took to be Japanese plain-clothes men. The fact is that when Chinese troop movements take place the soldiers need coolies to carry for them; they impress these wherever they can find them with the consequence that on the approach of bodies of troops it is usual for the population of a place to lock their houses up and hide in the mountains. The soldiers are naturally annoyed when they arrive in a place to find everyone gone; no one to help them make fires,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212634, "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": 188, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "168\n\nfirst successes; our teams succeeded in cutting two bridges on the important Shanghai-Hangchow railway, by which supplies for the Japanese forces attacking Kinhwa moved. One bridge, a single span, was near a Japanese post on the railway, but the team had succeeded in obtaining its measurements and preparing the charges, so that they had little difficulty in sneaking up one wet night and fixing them, when the garrison were all sheltering inside the post. The first the garrison knew of it was when they heard the explosion. But even then, they did not seem to realise that the span had been dropped into the creek, because at dawn next morning a power-driven trolley came along with an inspection party and ran full tilt over the gap into the waters. Of the party of four Japanese, two were drowned. Although Chinese troops had done some demolition work in the past, it was not of the same quality. The Japanese were furious. They took four miserable farmers off the fields by the bridge and gave them the water treatment. That consisted of inviting them in and offering them a nice bowl of tea. After the farmer had finished the first bowl, he was invited to drink another; if he showed signs of demurring, he was encouraged by prods and kicks to take more, and he had to continue drinking till he simply could not swallow any more. Four Japanese would then take him outside, seize him each by an arm or leg, and throw him into the air, allowing him to drop to the earth. If that did not rupture his full stomach, they would jump on it. They would then leave him to die in agony. Finally, the heads of the four farmers were cut off and stuck up at each corner of the broken bridge.\n\nOur own position at Chin Ya was none too secure. After the departure of our Army Group Commander, we had been placed under the command of a general, whose headquarters were not far away, but whose troops faced west towards Wuhu and the Poyang lake, where, as I have already explained, there were no targets. As soon as the success of our work became known, there was pressure from all sorts of generals to enter their students at our school; I do not flatter myself that the desire was based so much on the wish to benefit from our instruction as to have a share in our supplies. Our new general now wanted to take possession of us hook, line, and sinker, and the better to do it, he proposed we should move over to his part of the country. Not only were there no targets there, but neither was there any derelict railway on which we could train; we hastily explained what a lot of work and money we had put into our \"plant\" and the overwhelming disadvantages of moving. It was agreed we should stay, but we felt under the obligation to accept a number of teams from the General's regiments for our next course; all wasted effort.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212638, "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "172\n\ndisplaced by the Japanese advance on Shangjao. He also engaged some of the workmen from the Co-op. I was concerned not to have all our eggs in one basket, because I feared that should our efforts be too successful the Japanese would come and bomb us or send fifth column plain-clothes men to liquidate us. So we placed his workshop in another village. For raw material Reginald had the pieces of steel rail cut with explosives from our derelict line when practising with the students. From these he made all sorts of things. His chief output was knives, with which we had to equip all our students for cutting fuse, and other work. He also made screw-drivers, pliers, wire-cutters, crow-bars, and earth augers. The latter were heavy instruments with nine-inch cutting surfaces, that we used to cut holes in the earth. You could lay quite a good mine at the bottom of a six-foot deep nine-inch wide earth auger hole.\n\nThe chief instrument for cratering was however the light camouflet set. This was a metal tube of 2\" diameter and 6 feet long, which was sunk into the earth by means of a hammer head that slid up and down inside. When driven in its full length one pulled the tube out and dropped in a small camouflet charge of 4 oz. of explosive; that blew a chamber of about a foot diameter at the bottom of the hole, sufficiently large to take a charge of 50 lbs. Ammonal was the best explosive for this type of cratering. We would pour the grey powder down the hole, gently ramming it with a wooden rammer, until the whole fifty pounds was well packed at the bottom, together with a primer from which a length of detonating fuse led out to the surface. We would then tamp the whole to earth level with mud, also gently rammed down, lash the detonator and safety fuse assembly to the detonating fuse and set the thing off. One could thus produce a crater up to thirty feet in diameter. This type of demolition, useful for mining at the back of bridge abutments and destroying them, took too much time and the instruments were too heavy and conspicuous to appeal much to our students.\n\nOur second course finished in October, by which time we were beginning to run short of explosives and other supplies. Although the Japanese withdrawal from Shangjao had reopened communication with the rest of China, the destruction by the Chinese of all the motor roads to deny their use to the enemy, had prevented any further supplies reaching us. The first to come through were borne by junk and by coolie escorted by Jim, the missionary who had escaped from Shanghai, and who now rejoined us to help in administration. He brought us news of outside events. We learnt that it had been decided to wind up the main", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212690, "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": 244, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Plate 10. Bulbous Chinese-style, China-fir coffins, stacked in a shop in Hollywood Road. A small shrine to the Earth God and the God of Wealth offers protection in the foreground. (Photograph courtesy of Kit Hayward)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212853, "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-1992", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "147\n\nwireless. We had small hand generators for charging the batteries, but our skeds were so heavy, that even though we hired coolies to turn the generators in relays for fourteen hours a day, we could not keep our batteries up. So it was proposed to drop a \"chorhorse\" to us, a small petrol machine which would do the job. That was the one container we never found. The package was heavy, it broke away from the 'chute, and must have dived into the earth, where it probably buried itself a good many feet. We did not get our \"chorhorse\" till my relief arrived with a large mule train overland from Kun-ming.\n\nThe dropping of money was an anxiety; there was a tendency to overload the containers, and a proportion broke away and crashed to earth, burying and scattering a jumble of bent silver rupees. I kept the responsibility for money in my own hands, and on the whole we lost remarkably little thanks to the innate honesty of the simple natives, who helped us to collect the scattered treasure. They did not like accepting the bent dollars in payment; but I had to insist; we had too many on our hands, and after all they contained the same amount of metal.\n\nI was due for relief before the rains; the officer sent for the purpose was a well-known young Tibetan explorer. Let us hope he will some day add to his books by giving us an account of his adventures in Kokang; they were not few. Although in my time, the Japanese had on several occasions put us in a state of alarm, by advances from Kunlong, so that we once dispersed to hideouts in the hills, they never actually chased us. That was fortunate for though we had hired mules from the Puppet, we were by no means mobile. My successor, however, had a different experience which should be well worth the relating.\n\nAs for the Myosa, his case was referred to the highest authorities, and the British insisted on his release, without trial. He was flown over to India where he went to recuperate in a hill station. I cannot tell you the end of his story, because I do not know it myself. We must leave him in his bungalow on a hill top in India.\n\nIt was mid-May of 1944 before I could start on my return journey. I took Rogue with me, and Lao Teng. The Americans had kindly given us a case of C ration; for each meal there was a tin containing five biscuits, two lumps of sugar, coffee powder for two cups, and four glucose candies; and a second tin with vegetable hash, vegetable stew, or hash and beans. It was all excellent, and saved time cooking; only", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212862, "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-1992", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "156\n\nThe Abraham Family\n\nEleazer Joseph Abraham\n\nDavid Ezekiel Joshua Abraham\n\nDavid Abraham Reuben m Ruby Moselle (1890-1982)\n\nEzekiel\n\nJoseph\n\nIsaac\n\n1\n\nAziza\n\nof the Jewish community, and served it well. His son, Ezekiel Abraham, recalled how the Jewish community had rallied to succour the refugees from Eastern Europe and Germany in 1938 and 1941 when some 17,000 to 18,000 refugees found their way to Shanghai.\n\n\"The Japanese commander had called in R.D. Abraham, as leader of the Jewish community in Shanghai, to tell him that a shipload of Jewish refugees had arrived. 'We cannot let them land,' said the Japanese. 'Why?' Abraham wanted to know. 'There is no place for them to live, and the refugees have no money to feed themselves,' reasoned the Japanese. 'In that case,' said Abraham, thoughtfully, without a smile, 'you will just have to shoot all of them, because there is no other place on earth for them to go.' Then he paused for a few moments before confiding in the Japanese, 'or, we can open the Sassoon warehouses in Hongkew and let the refugees live there, and put them to work in the factories.'\n\nGhe Ezras\n\n+15\n\nEdward Ezra switched from the opium trade to large-scale real estate construction and management in 1900. He erected - on the land bounded by Nanking, Kiujiang, Szechwan and Kiangse Roads - 1,000,000 taels worth of residences that enjoyed modern amenities. His own home on Joffre Road boasted a ballroom and a music room. The family interests included hotels. The Astor House Hotel, on Broadway and Whangpoo Road, occupied three acres of ground. Edward Ezra, who was a Director of Astor House, was the first person born in Shanghai and educated at the Shanghai Public School to be elected to the Municipal Council. Socially linked to the Sassoons from the beginning by marriage, today", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212884, "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-1992", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "178\n\nNOTES\n\n1\n\nSaid by one of the Tangs of Ha Pa. The father had won a Jockey Club lottery ticket\n\nMrs Wong Chau Yuk-bing, 10 July 1991\n\nI once became concerned with a grave on a hill above Tsuen Wan. There had been a mistake and confusion when exhuming illegal graves and removing the remains to an authorized cemetery. My subsequent enquiry showed that this slope contained a number of graves of Chans of Sam Tung Uk, repaired in 1919, and another old grave belonging to their cousins from Kwan Mun Hau, a recent reburial of another of their graves whose old site had been required for development; the earth grave with stone tablet dated 1954 belonging to another local lineage recently taken up and remains placed in an urn (whose removal caused all the trouble); and a Tsang grave dated 1909 but removed at some time previously. The enquiry showed that the hill was a favoured burial site, that it was mostly monopolized by the Chans of Sam Tung Uk; that they had received objections from Kwan Mun Hau to a new grave and had not used it but found another site.\n\n4\n\nThe exercise was prompted by what I personally felt was the misguided notion that all the owners of old graves could, and should, one fine day be asked to exhume them.\n\n4 This was still felt to be the case, even though some leading members of the clan were Christians, with forebears who had also been members of the local protestant Chuen Yuen Church, established in Tsuen Wan about 1905.\n\n+\n\nAddressed to DOTW but sent to NTA HQ. See Secretary for the NT's NT L/M No.(172) in E/948/78 to TM&DO TW dated 11 December 1980, enclosing Chinese letter dated November 1980.\n\n+ Chinese letter from Mr. Wong Kit-hung, Village Representative of Shui Pin Village, Yuen Long, dated 14 January 1980.\n\n\"Wong Cho-yip and 22 other villagers of this place are the owners of the grave of Ancestor Shui-tai at Tsing Lung Tau. Ancestor Shui-tai was buried there in the tenth month of the first year of Tung Chih [1862], so that the grave has a history of 120 years. The villagers have recently learned that the government will resume the land there for development. They fear that great damage will be done to the fung-shui [of the clan] if the grave is destroyed. We entreat you to remedy the situation quickly [by cancelling the notice] or by compensating for this loss, so that they may choose a lucky day for the removal of their ancestral grave (and another auspicious burial ground for).\n\nM\n\nChopped DOTW Inward. Serial No. 1861 of 17 August 1963. The District Commissioner gave an account of a ceremonial visit following damage to a grave. See Annual Departmental Report, District Commissioner, New Territories, 1955-56.\n\n4\n\nADR, DCNT 1955-56, para. 87.\n\nMr Wong Kwai-chi, Land Inspector, Class 1. He and I had been colleagues and friends since we first served together in the District Office South, twenty years before.\n\n|| DOTW file TW6/WL/71, Chinese letter dated 4 May 1971.\n\n1:\n\nSee JHKBRAS, Vol. 17 (1977), p.189 for background.\n\nFile TW130/983/77, for China Light and Power Company's electricity supply sub-station on NE Lantau.\n\n14\n\nThis was partly their own fault, as owing to a particularly intense intra-lineage feud, all through the late 1970s and most of the 1980s they could not agree on removal terms,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212929, "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-1992", "page_number": 238, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "223\n\nconcerning Birrell's thoughts on appropriate dividing lines. Birrell's beliefs on this have implications for her work, certainly. For instance, when Birrell writes that 'no known city of ancient China....... is linked to an illustrious mythological founder' (p. 255), she has presumably assigned P'an Keng to history, rather than to myth. Her theoretical stance probably also accounts for Birrell's disinclination to cite Chinese ritual practices (present or past) to elucidate the basic meaning of her texts.\n\nThere are a few misleading statements in the book. The 'Appended Texts' of the I Ching is apparently dated to 800 B.C. in one place (p. 44), for instance. There are misstatements. Twice (on pp. 55 and 240) Birrell speaks of a single author for the Classic of History (Shu ching). When she moreover assigns a major commentary of the Shu ching to a K'ung An-kuo in the 2nd c. B.C., she ignores all recent scholarship on the subject. Ko Hung was not an alchemist (p 46), as Nathan Sivin has demonstrated, and Han interest in immortality techniques definitely did not decline (p. 182), as the dynastic histories show. Birrell's talk of mythic passages ‘appeal to tourism' (e.g., p. 42) discounts a more probable motive for mentioning specific mythic sites: to use physical 'evidence' to 'prove' improbable assertions. And in a very few cases, Birrell's analysis of a passage does not quite tally with her own translation. For example, of a fabled land Birrell writes that its male children are 'left to die before they reach the age of three,' while her text simply states that 'within three years, the [male child] will die prematurely' (p. 249).\n\nThere are disappointingly few references in Birrell's work to either recent archaeological reports or to Han apocrypha. The apocrypha in particular preserve valuable pre-Han information on mythological heroes, marvelous flora and fauna, and cosmology.' Furthermore, a number of topics in Chinese Mythology simply cry out for further discussion. Almost nothing is said of numerology, despite interesting studies by Wen Yi-to and others on the subject. And the Chinese notion of human invention as it relates to patterns of Heaven-and-Earth merits a full discussion. As it is, the reader is left with the erroneous impression that it is always wrong for humans to imitate the gods (p. 60). For a bibliography that is generally complete, there are lacunae, including Yü Ying-shih's classic work on early Chinese views on immortality and Susan Cahill's study of the Queen Mother of the West. Finally, Birrell's editor should have checked the multiple indices more carefully, since they do not include all books (e.g., the History of the Chou) or all mythic figures (e.g., Ch'in\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212931, "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-1992", "page_number": 240, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "225\n\nparallels Hong Kong's, petitioned the British government to acquire 'an insular possession near the coast of China... beyond the reach of future despotism and oppression,' Matheson, who did not have Hong Kong specifically in mind, thought of British merchants as 'princes of the earth,' and despised the Chinese, ‘a people characterized by marvellous degree of imbecility, avarice, conceit and obstinacy... [in] possession of a vast portion of the most desirable parts of the earth.'\n\nChinese officials were no less culture-bound: Commissioner Lin Zexu, the Emperor's man in Canton, confronted the British just before the 1839-1840 Opium War by burning 2,613,879 pounds of British opium, 'surely the largest drug haul ever collected,' says Welsh. The British had been smuggling opium into China, hoping to balance off the large amounts of money they were spending for tea and other products exported home to Britain. Lin Zexu advised punishing the British traders by withholding exports to them of rhubarb and tea, without which they could not exist. Because 'their legs were too tightly bound to permit them to box or wrestle,' British soldiers, he said, were not suited to fighting on shore. Unfortunately for the Chinese, their confiscation of opium was followed by attacks by British gunboats on their port cities. They were forced to open Shanghai and other coastal cities to the British and cede Hong Kong to them.\n\nNot until Chris Patten was appointed governor in 1992 did Hong Kong become a high British priority. While publicly demanding that the garrison lay down their lives for it, says Welsh, Churchill privately considered the colony not worth defending against the Japanese. During World War II, the Foreign Office regarded Hong Kong as 'something of a thorn in the side' - a view some of its diplomats still hold — and wanted to return it to China; the Americans wanted this too. In 1946, the first postwar governor, Sir Mark Young, drafted a plan for a 'Municipal Council' constituted on a fully representative basis, but this was consistently turned down. Later, the colonial secretary, Oliver Lyttelton, commented, \"The electorate of Britain didn't care a brass farthing about Hong Kong.' Welsh says this remains true, but he also reminds us that, in 1992, Chris Patten was proposing a more democratically elected Legislative Council not for the British voters but for the people of Hong Kong. As Welsh suggests, in 1946 China would have been in no position to object. But Hong Kong has since become more valuable than anyone could have dreamed in 1946.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213090, "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "139\n\nJuly 2nd\n\nLockhart and Governor now making themselves obnoxious bloody fools They are now walking into the mite properly\n\nJuly 4\n\nSaw Governor about suggested plans, gave him a lecture as to what to do and who to take advice from\n\nJuly 6th\n\nGovernor and ADC round hospitals Governor said to Chater (Sir Paul Chater, the well-known Hong Kong personality) in Club (Hong Kong Club) before me \"We expect to go to Laichikok tomorrow\" This was a boast that he was actually thinking about running into some danger at last\n\nJuly 7th\n\nLockhart, Cantlie and Hartigan at Laichikok, (2) did not visit graveyards at all Castle, II and L to Hygeia Never visited graves\n\nJuly 8th\n\nPreston and Westcott to Laichukok, no graves visited\n\nCantlie was Dr. (later Sir James) Cantlie, dean of the Hong Kong College of Medicine. He and Dr. William Hartigan were asked to visit Laichikok Hospital and report to the Governor. Also asked were two army medical officers, Surgeon Colonel A.F. Preston and Surgeon Captain S. Westcott. Lowson paid much attention to the way the plague victims were buried. He insisted that the graves should be dug down to a certain depth so that the coffins could be properly covered up with soil and lime and not exposed. A reporter from the Hong Kong Weekly Press described what he saw in Laichikok before the two visits as follows: 'The average depth of the graves was not more than nine inches. In some cases, not a few, the coffin was actually above the level of the ground and merely had a little mound of loose earth above them. Lowson's specifications had therefore not been properly carried out. In spite of Lowson's question mark, Cantlie and Hartigan did visit the graveyard. They wrote: 'We saw eight graves ready for use; they were in a row about 2 ft. apart and quite 6-1/2 ft deep.' They added that the official accompanying them volunteered the information that for the first graves the depth was insufficient because burial had to be done in a hurry. Preston and Westcott wrote that they did", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213143, "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "193\n\nH\n\nDetails of the early Hakka examination successes are known from a recently recovered genealogy, of the Chan (陳) lineage of Nam Chung. It is understood that a copy of this genealogy will be deposited with the Hong Kong Museum of History. I am indebted to Mr Chan Wing-hot for drawing my attention to the information in this genealogy.\n\nQ Seen 8\n\nAt the time of the Block Crown Lease (1905), 12.68 acres of saltpans were recorded. However, the serious inadequacies of the first survey here led to another being conducted in 1912, when 17.11 acres were recorded. However, in 1912 two areas were left unclaimed, probably because storms had breached their bunds and ruined them. These two areas totalled about 3.3 acres. In addition, there were about 0.6 acres of houses, huts, and waste within the saltpan reclamation, which, therefore, totalled about 21.2 acres. The saltpans were very valuable property in the nineteenth century - the Basel missionaries (see below, n. 17) record the sale of a share by a Tam Shui Hang villager in 1882 for \"several hundreds of dollars\" (Basel Mission archive, doc. AT-16, Nr. 45). In the 1920s, however, and still more in the 1930s, cheap imported salt caused ever-growing problems, which led to the closure of the saltworks before the War. A bridge was built to the saltpans in 1934 (Administrative Reports for the Year 1934, App. J, \"Report on the New Territories for 1934\", p. J17). After the War, the abandoned saltworks became the site of a major squatter settlement, recently cleared. Today, the saltpan area has disappeared under new reclamation, and all that remains is a new Tin Hau Temple, replacing the old one previously on the saltpans, built on a new site on the new waterfront.\n\nFor details of the history of the temples in the area, on the settlement of the Hakka in the area, the reclamation projects they undertook, the founding and management of the market at Sha Tau Kok, and the functioning of the Shap Yeuk as the district management body, see P.H. Hase, \"The Alliance of Ten Settlements and Polities in the Sha Tau Kok Area\", in D. Faure and H.S. Siu, eds., Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China, Stanford University Press, 1995.\n\n12. No details on the earlier history of the temple survived the very full restoration of 1894, but Shan Tsun elders believe it to be very old.\n\n13. In the 1688 Gazetteer (Ch. 3) a ferry “along the coast” is mentioned called the \"Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry\". There can be no doubt that this is the ferry to Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong, etc.), 12 miles down the coast. Ma Tseuk Ling, at the head of Starling Inlet, is the nearest old village to the Wu Shek Kok Temple (Wu Shek Kok village - probably a foundation of the early nineteenth century). The coasts of Starling Inlet within two or three miles of Ma Tseuk Ling were blocked with mudflats and mangrove everywhere except at Wu Shek Kok, where alone a hill falls steeply into the sea. Wu Shek Kok is, therefore, the only possible site for a \"Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry\" landing place. The Ma Tseuk Ling villagers owned the Wu Shek Kok Temple, and the Ma Tseuk Ling military post (1688 Gazetteer, ch. 7), was at Shek Chung Au, just a few hundred yards from Wu Shek Kok. These Ma Tseuk Ling connections with the Wu Shek Kok area strongly suggest that the Wu Shek Kok hill was regarded as forming part of the Ma Tseuk Ling area. Later, Wu Shek Kok formed part of the Ma Tseuk Ling Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213150, "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": 218, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "200\n\nnot have been written at all\n\n58 See the plan and cross-section of a typical 1853 Sha Tau Kok shop unit, taken from the drawings and descriptions of the Basel missionaries, in P.H. Hase, \"The Alliance of Ten\", in D. Faure and H. Siu, eds, Down to Earth, op. cit., and see also P.H. Hase, \"Sha Tau Kok in 1853\", op. cit.\n\n59 D. Faure, A. Ng, B. Luk, eds, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 262-280\n\n60 The Hong Kong Museum of History has a set of Po Tau equipment\n\n61 Julonghaiguan Barman Dashiji, op. cit., sub anno.\n\n62 P.H. Hase, \"Sha Tau Kok in 1853\", op. cit.\n\n63 The Tai Po to Sha Yue Chung Ferry was also deeply involved in this trade. In 1939, the Customs came to an agreement with Tsang Sang, the leader of the guerrillas controlling the eastern side of Mirs Bay, that the Customs would treat as duty-free goods anything imported through Sha Yue Chung for the guerrilla fight against the Japanese, but, while this trade was, therefore, not smuggling, it still faced major problems from Japanese attack.\n\n64 Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 1899, printed by Noronha & Co, Government Printers, (Sessional Papers), \"Extracts from Papers relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong. Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor: Extracts from a Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong\" (No. 9 of 1899), p. 190, notes this boatyard as a significant business in 1898.\n\n65 \"Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart\" (Sessional Papers, 1899), op. cit., p. 189\n\n66 For the Sha Tau Kok Branch Railway, see R.J. Phillips, Kowloon-Canton Railway (British Section). A History, Urban Council, Hong Kong, 1990, pp. 84-93\n\n67 A. Macmillan, Seaports of the Far East, London, 1925. I am indebted to Mr. J. Lanham for drawing my attention to this description.\n\n68 For the first two of these tablets see Faure, Ng, and Luk, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 262-280, and Vol. 2, pp. 376-379. The third is unpublished, and is now at the Hong Kong Museum of History.\n\n69 A further, small, boatyard was at Kat Om in 1912: see Oime Report, op. cit., para. 76, p. 55\n\n70 See, for instance, details on shops in Sai Kung in D. Faure, \"Saikung, the Making of the District and its Experience during World War II\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 22, 1982, pp. 161-216, on Tsuen Wan in D. Faure, \"Notes on the History of Tsuen Wan\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 24, 1984, pp. 46-104, and on Cheung Chau in J.W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213186, "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": 8, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "PRESIDENT'S REPORT\n\nCONTENTS\n\nHON AUDITOR'S REPORT\n\nARTICLES:\n\nCarl Smith - The German Speaking Community in\n\nHong Kong, 1846-1918\n\nDan Waters - Foreigners and Fung Shui\n\nviii\n\nxiv\n\n1\n\n57\n\nKeith Stevens - The Taking of Chapu, May 1842\n\n119\n\nJames Hayes - The Royal Asiatic Society, Hong\n\nKong Branch\n\n129\n\n0\n\nElizabeth Sinn - The Study of Local History in\n\nHong Kong: A Review\n\n·\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n147\n\nAnthony Siu Kwok Kin - Notes on Cheung Pao Tsai ...... 171\n\nAnthony Siu Kwok Kin - A Short Biography of\n\nLai Chun Bun\n\n175\n\nWong Wing Ho - Yet More on the Man the\n\nEmperor Decapitated\n\n179\n\nRichard Webb - Earth God and Village Shrines\n\nin the New Territories\n\n183\n\nSPECIAL FEATURE\n\nAn English Bibliography for China Studies -\n\ncompiled by Betty Wei Peh Ti\n\n193\n\nvii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213254, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "55\n\nThere were two attempts to escape from the Hung Hom Bay Camp. The first try was made by five prisoners. They were assigned to build a platform for concerts. The platform was near the barbed wire fence. It provided a shelter for them to tunnel to freedom and a storage place for the earth removed during their digging. Under cover of darkness, five crept through the tunnel; however, the last of the group was spotted by a sentry, who shouted the usual \"Halt or I shoot\". The escapee kept on going, and the sentry shot. The bullet hit the bag the prisoner was carrying, containing some of his gear, so he escaped injury, but he was overtaken and captured. Shortly after, another of the escaped internees was found in the hills of the New Territories. Several days later, the remaining three were rounded up near Sai Kung.\n\nSome time after this incident, another man arranged to accompany two other prisoners on a visit to a dentist in the Hong Kong Hotel. The dentist was only expecting two patients. He took these two into his surgery; one was to serve as an interpreter for the other. The third man, who had somehow arranged to come along, was left in the waiting room with a guard. He informed the guard he must go to the toilet. The guard accompanied him there; however, he did not go into the toilet as he wished to keep his eye on both the door of the dentist and the door of the toilet to ensure that none of his three prisoners escaped. The man in the toilet was able to escape through a window, but he was caught the same night and returned to the camp.\n\nThe patriotism aroused by war stirred up in a British colony much doubt, distrust of old friends, ill will, and harsh words. The clubs passed resolutions excluding enemy aliens; the ties of former friendship were severely strained and, in many cases, broken. Many in the Colony who frequently passed the former premises of the Deutsche Asiatische Bank on Queens Road, not far from the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, were irritated by the continuing presence of the Prussian double-eagled ensign, an architectural feature of the building. Many indignant letters appeared in the correspondence column of the newspapers before the emblem was finally removed.\n\nSince my delivery of the talk upon which this paper is based, Anne Selby has published a well-researched article in the South China Morning Post on 25 June, 1988, entitled \"When Germans were unwelcome in HK\". She used many of the same sources as I have used in the Public Records Office. I would refer interested readers to her article for information I have not included in my account.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213256, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "58\n\nAs most of the research was undertaken in Hong Kong, romanisation of the Chinese is mainly in Cantonese. Therefore, the spelling fung shui is used rather than the more common feng shui. All currency, unless otherwise stated, is in Hong Kong dollars.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nThe author is grateful to Mr Ko Cheuk-luen for undertaking research in Canada, and to Mr Benny Chung Chi-bun who, similarly, undertook research in Holland. Without their assistance, together with the help of many other friends and acquaintances who answered countless questions and gave their own views of fung shui, this paper would have lacked important details.\n\nThe author also acknowledges the assistance of many of the authors of the titles listed in the bibliography from which information has been drawn.\n\nIntroduction\n\nWhat exactly is fung shui? John Mitchell (Eitel, Feng-Shui: 1984) wrote in the 'Afterword' of the republished book:\n\n(It is) the art of perceiving the subtle energies that animate nature and the landscape, and the science of reconciling the best interests of the living earth with those of all its inhabitants.\n\nThe term 'fung shui (风水)' is sometimes inadequately called 'Chinese geomancy'. It constitutes one of the numerous ways of trying to account, and plan, for the future. Translated it means, simply, the two powerful forces 'wind' (including air and ventilation) and 'water' (including rain, damp, drainage and sanitation). This title 'fung shui', itself, tells one little; although it was true that an ancient Chinese farming village had to be as well protected as possible from the elements. No habitation could be auspicious without fresh water. It was necessary to 'tap the goodness of nature' to benefit man, although harmony is a dynamic process. Fung shui has also been described as the science of good placement and alignment within the confines of nature.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213257, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "Fung shur is not composed entirely of superstitions. Much consists of a complex web of well-documented metaphysical beliefs and esoteric knowledge based on first principles and supported by philosophical theory and practices grounded in ancient, indigenous lore. There is a rich technical vocabulary (Morgan, 1980:209).\n\nAlthough sometimes dismissed by sceptics as old-wives tales, psychic power in various forms and occultism are, of course, not uncommon in the West. They include hypnotic suggestion, thought transference, telepathy, premonition, emotional links, out-of-body experiences, life-after-death, and even the charming of warts.\n\nFung shu doctrine embraces magnetism, cosmic waves, radio activity, the mysteries of heaven and earth, the natural sciences, logic, higher mathematics, chemistry, geology, geography, philosophy, astronomy, psychology, ecology, architecture, spatial orientation, and ergonomics. It has been claimed that what geomancy is to geography, astrology is to astronomy (Cumine, 1981:75). Although fung shui depends upon elements such as design, spatial planning, ecology, and common sense, there is also a degree of mysticism. Sometimes geomancy is debased by gnosis, ancient spiritual sciences and beliefs, folk religion, and traditional mythology. The relationship to nature, and observing nature's principles linked to the universe, is important. Some practitioners claim, 'One does not demand reasons from nature.'\n\nOne fung shui master stated, 'A person is not just born, married, loses his or her job, and dies. There are reasons. For example: in early 1992, the Antiquities Advisory Board was preparing for a group photograph. The author wanted to walk in, and stand in the centre behind a row of chairs, but his path was blocked by a group of fellow members. During those intervening seconds, a heavy electric-light globe capable of maiming or killing came crashing down just where the author would have stood. Some Board members reacted by saying good fortune comes in waves. At that time the author's luck was at a high ebb. Then would have been the time to have bought a sweepstake ticket. Luck attracts luck. Other members said that, because the author had donated blood 70 times, escaping death was a reward for good deeds.'\n\nThere are references to fung shui as early as the third century BC, referring to the construction of the ... (a li is about one third of an ...).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213258, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "60\n\nEnglish mile) long, Great Wall (Needham, 1971:53). General Meng Thien is said to have swallowed poison because of concern about this; undue interference with the given pattern of nature. It was not possible [during the wall's construction] not to cut through the veins of the earth. This is my crime.\n\nNeedham also writes, however, that this tale could have been a 'literary invention'.\n\nFung shui can loosely be described as being partly composed of 'mana', het shai (?), yeung (?) or lucky forces, while, as its antithesis, shaat het (?) (meaning to kill or slay) connotes bad currents, the breath of ill fortune, noxious vapours or harmful 'arrows' or forces. Fung shui, which has been likened to man's 'spiritual compass', guides lives and promotes balance relative to nature throughout the universe among both the living and the dead. Thus the purpose is to avert disharmony wherever it exists; be it in the home, the workplace or the grave. 'If a person's lucky that's fine. But the fung shui master can make his luck even better,' some Chinese will tell you.\n\nWith faith in the divine powers of nature and the beauty of the landscape, a golden thread of spiritual life can be perceived running through every form of existence. This binds together, in harmony, everything that exists in heaven or on earth. A man and his family can be influenced, for good or evil, depending on the siting of an ancestor's grave (Chinese do not like the Vietnamese practice of siting graves in flooded paddy). It is widely believed that the principles of fung shu were first applied to graves by Kuo P'o a scholar who died in 324 AD (Williams, 1931: 144).\n\n'Woe betide anything or anybody who does not conform to the principles of fung shui,' is the common belief.\n\n'It is a great pity that more gweilos (loosely translated as \"foreign devils\"), and Chinese as well, do not believe in fung shui,' wrote Richard Webb of Kowloon, in the South China Morning Post on 10 July 1991. This was in reply to a journalist's (Stuart Wolfendale's) jibe, in a previous letter to the editor. Wolfendale wrote, '... there is nothing more ridiculous than a gweilo who believes in fung shui'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213261, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "63\n\nIn another case a post-graduate Chinese student told the author:\n\n'Before, I thought it was all superstition. But now I realise it makes sense to proceed in harmony with nature. In life, one of the most important things is to maintain harmony. Although Mother is a Catholic she also believes in fung sha.\n\nThe author, years ago, personally knew young Hong Kong Chinese teenagers who did not believe in, or were not convinced about the efficaciousness of fung shui. But now, after becoming middle-aged or elderly, they have become firm followers. 'A woman who did not believe nearly died,' the author was informed. 'After recovering, she became convinced.'\n\nAs Hong Kong has become more developed and affluent, people have had more money to spend on 'luxuries', such as fung shui. Certainly, modern education alone seems not to deal the final blow (Freedman, 1976:235). Yet it is more likely that a New Territories' villager, who lives close to nature and is a member of a tightly knit group, is more likely to believe in fung shui than his urban cousin. Urban society is divorced from close, everyday contact with mother earth and her cycles. For the urban dweller the modes of thought which underly the practise of fung shui have to be consciously cultivated in order to comprehend them. There are, of course, some New Territories' villagers who do not believe in fung shui in spite of the close web of relationships in rural life.\n\nEugene Ho (who one assumes is Chinese although he could be Eurasian) wrote in the South China Morning Post letters to the editor columns, on 25 May 1987- 'I find the whole theory of fung shui wholly devoid of cognitive content.' He went on to say that many of the casual 'laws' of fung shui, (if they are really \"laws\" at all) are no more than half a probability.\n\nNonetheless, when the British took over the New Territories on a 99-year lease in 1898, they promised to respect the then existing (Qing Dynasty) religious rites, ceremonies and social customs. The Hong Kong Government Gazette of October 7, 1899, published (one year after the New Territories were taken over) as a supplement to the Convention of Peking, said that graves in the leased Territory were never to be removed. Some law lecturers at Hong Kong University feel, however, that, because", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213263, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "65\n\nan extra $4 million because of an extension of time granted to a contractor when residents complained the district's fung shui was being disturbed. During the 1980s, amounts paid out annually by the Government varied between $500,000 and $950,000. From 1989 to 1991, ex-gratia payouts of nearly $2 million were made. The dilemma is always that if the Administration pays out on unproven claims, it will be accused of wasting taxpayers' money, and, if it does not pay, others will say the Government does not respect Chinese culture,\n\nBut as one retired Scottish civil servant explained, there are two kinds of fung shui. There is the one that villagers will accept money for to have it overridden. But nothing will compensate for actually severing the main \"dragon's vein\".\n\n'Money cannot buy good fung shui,' Tang clansmen told the Government when they turned down an offer of $1.7 million for agreeing to a 200-year-old ancestral grave being removed at Nim Wan, in the Deep Bay area, so that a landfill project could proceed. The Clan did, however, say that it would consider allowing the grave to be moved for a fung shui 'swap' scheme, and if Government demolished a police station at Ping Shan. They claim the station has for years 'crushed' good fung shui. In retaliation, the Tang Clan closed an ancient study hall and an ancestral hall along the Ping Shan Heritage Trail. At the time of writing, the dispute had still not been settled.\n\nThe Hong Kong Government has also tacitly accepted certain aspects of Chinese folk religion. Some Government offices have had Earth God shrines (82) erected outside them. An example was Murray House (near where the new Bank of China now stands), which was demolished in 1982. It had a reputation among Rating and Valuation Department staff, who worked there, of being haunted. Other Government offices which have had shrines outside them include the office of the project manager at Empire House, while it was being built in 1991, in Tsim Sha Tsui East. Also, various government project managers' offices in the New Territories have had small shrines erected outside them. Who actually paid to have these shrines set up is not clear. Again, on countless occasions, the ceremonial carving of a suckling pig, on an appropriate day, has appeared to civil servants to be well worth the expense in that it allayed concerns of staff and, afterwards, members worked better.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213267, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "69\n\nthe views expressed right at the start of this paper by Dr Ernest J. Eitel, sometimes titled Hong Kong's first historian and for some time a Hong Kong civil servant, were by no means unusual.\n\nToday, far more empathy is shown towards Chinese culture in general by Westerners. For instance, many Caucasian firms believe aquariums enrich the fung shu of an office. It is not just Chinese who can relax, Westerners will tell you, when they lie back and watch fish swimming. It gives everyone a special feeling and lowers their blood pressure by a few degrees.\n\nOf course, certain rules have to be followed. The number of fish kept is often six or nine. Three multiplied by three equals nine (a lucky number); and a homonym of three, in Cantonese, sounds similar to the character meaning 'lively'. Because of colour symbolism, one fish may be black (a Black Molly), another reddish (a goldfish), and the rest any other colour. Because the fish are supposed to act as a shield against bad fung shui, sometimes a fish dies. But better a dead fish than a dead customer.\n\nHigher up the hill above Central District, at the Albany in Albany Road, residents were concerned about the 70-storey, new, People's Republic Bank of China Building 'giving off vibes'. They feared the sharp edges of its structure with their negative forces would menace the abode of some of Hong Kong's rich and famous. In the West, the new Bank of China building would perhaps be described as 'ominous', 'overshadowing' or 'overpowering'. Many Chinese, however, liken the sharp edges of the Bank of China to a knife pointed at, or arrows cast at, Government House and Central Government Offices, namely, the heart of the British Colonial Administration. These 'weapons', together with the flyovers close to Government House, tie the decision-making hands of the British Governor and threaten the prosperity of Hong Kong. The fung shui 'dragon vein', with the dragon's head turned to face its ancestors, serpents down from Victoria Peak, close to the Albany, concealed by a carpet of vegetation. It passes close to the Albany apartments. The dragon thrusts and turns as the topography changes. The earth surges with natural energy. Chinese dragons are more serpent-like and sinuous than those in the West. And, as the vein gathers strength, it proceeds vigorously on to the 'dragon sites'\n\nsuch as the home of the Governor and down to the Hong Kong Bank. It then dips into the harbour, the 'dragon's lair'. Although now the slope up the Peak is largely obscured by high-rise buildings, on some hills and\n\n70", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213269, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "71\n\nMost Chinese will, however, tell you that a dragon has sinews and veins which can be severed. Blood can be spilled. Thus, when the earth's flesh was pierced, blood, in the form of bright red, ochre-coloured earth, appeared during excavations for the construction of Hong Kong's underground railway in the 1970s. This could mean the time had come for workers to down tools. The evil that might follow had to be averted ritually. Taoist priests would then beat ceremonial gongs and offer prayers to pacify spirits of the earth where the dragon's peace was being destroyed. Exorcism in modern day Hong Kong is by no means uncommon (Raceday rites, 1987). Neither is exorcism uncommon in Christian churches. It is mentioned in the Bible.\n\nOne can compare certain Buddhist, Taoist or folk-religion ceremonies, which purify and bestow blessings, with walking through fields in Europe in springtime while conducting a Christian Rogation Service to ensure a good harvest.\n\nInterestingly, some Chinese came to the conclusion during the last century, that foreigners know far more about fung shui than they are prepared to admit. Otherwise, why would they have picked such a fine site (as it was then) for the Governor's residence? Why would they plant vegetation over the slopes of Victoria Peak in which dwells the resident dragon?\n\nReturning to the cutting edges of the Bank of China: a fung shui master is supposed to adhere to strict ethical standards and not do anything which could be construed as the 'black art'. He should not 'attack' a neighbour. However, in the New Territories, for example, a case where a successful family's fortune has suddenly waned has sometimes been traced to the desecration of an ancestor's grave. As a result, revenge against perpetrators was, in the past, not uncommon.\n\nA buried 'person' needs to 'breathe', and, whether he or she can do this properly or not, affects his or her descendants. Some believed Chiang Kai-Shek's rise to power depended on his mother's fine grave. This, the Communists are said to have dug up.\n\nThe People's Republic's 'Red Guards' went to considerable lengths during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) to destroy the 'Four Olds' (old customs, old habits, old culture, old thoughts). These included fung shui.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213272, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "74\n\nthere are many forms of geomancy some of which are linked to their Four Elements* namely Air, Fire, Earth and Water, which, in turn, are linked to the four corners of the earth. North American Indians also have their forms of geomancy.\n\nLey Lines in Britain\n\nThere are also aspects of Chinese geomancy that bear comparison with European beliefs. 'Dragon veins' for instance, are similar in some ways, to the invisible 'ley lines' that crisscross Britain (see Oxford English Dictionary, vol. VIII, 2nd Edition). This pre-Christian network, 'woven' across the countryside, crosses bogs and mountains, links salient points such as hilltops, and, in some cases, follows ancient tracks which were once trodden by merchants when transporting commodities like salt and flint. Ley lines embrace, symbolically, rich identifying features like sacred sites, stone circles, menhirs, encampments, watchtowers, earthen mounds, wishing and holy wells associated with saints, moats and ponds, and graveyards (Miller, 1989). Key positions, often at crossroads, were formed at intersections of the 'ley' (or lay) which included sites like Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. From the latter, various astronomical observations can be conducted. Like watching the sun rise at mid-summer from the centre of the stone circle over the heel-stone.\n\nThe first stone churches were often built on pre-Christian sites, where symbolic rites had been performed, such as in the old 'Serpent Temples'. Some believe Saint Mary (the Virgin Mary) Churches are really Christianised versions of the old 'Shining Earth Goddess'. With the importance of life-giving solar energy and its involvement in everyday life, such events as the fire festival were important in ancient Britain.\n\nThis network of ley lines (Saxon 'leye'; an obsolete word for fire) which can be traced across the English landscape, is visible only to those who have 'eyes' to see it. Prehistoric tracks, sometimes pilgrimage routes, often followed ley lines. Roman or medieval roads were frequently not primary arteries but simply followed the ley. The Icknield Way running from the Wash down to the Thames, and on to the Berkshire Downs, is an example of a pre-Roman Track. There is also the famous Saint Michael Ley Line, with the Michael and Mary currents, which serpentines from the tip of Cornwall to the coast of East Anglia (Miller, 1989). Such lines are really 'routes' or 'corridors' rather than straight lines.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213273, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "75\n\nThe Ley, common too in Scottish and fish cultures, also includes 'black energy lines' which are harmful, like the malevolent forces (sha chi) that exist in Chinese fung shui. They manifest themselves in bitter winds that blow from a corner of a building facing a railway track or telephone lines, or a straight watercourse with bad fung shui. These can affect both physical and mental health and cause misery.\n\nLike fung shui 'veins', ley lines are believed by many to entwine with vital life forces and the mysteries of hidden earth energies. Some believe they can be sensed by the psychic when driving over them in a car. Both fung shui and the ley have sometimes been styled as examples of the 'great nature religions'.\n\nAustralian Songlines\n\nIn Australia, the aboriginals follow wandering, invisible 'dream paths' to honour spirits of the land. These were once the routes of their nomadic ancestors. Trade is said to follow the same paths, some of which are only 'visible' at sunrise. The religious duty of the aboriginals is to travel the land and to reach back in time and space. There is some resemblance between Australian 'songlines' and ley lines in Britain.\n\nA few etymologists will tell you that the first language was, in fact, song (Chatwin, 1987, 61). And, wherever men have trodden, they have left a trail of song. Nomadic aboriginal 'ancestor beings' created the 'dreaming tracks', 'memory palaces' (Edwards, 1990; 12) and the songlines as they moved across the Australian landscape (Cundy, 1994). They left a trail of, so-called, 'life-cells' or 'spirit-children' along the 'lines of force' and footprints linked to particular points and sacred sites in the landscape. To these, souls are tied. A pile of rocks represents the eggs of a rainbow snake. A boulder of red sandstone symbolises the liver of a kangaroo.\n\nDowsing\n\nThe Bible tells us Moses used a rod to discover water. Dowsing (as used to detect water, minerals, metals, and hidden treasure) employs a form of latent or sixth sense in which rods, pendulums, or forked sticks (commonly of hazel, willow, or peach) are held in the hands to measure energies emanating from the earth. Even coat hangers, pitchforks, and bones have been used on occasions. Man's natural dowsing ability may be likened...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213274, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "76\n\nto the homing instinct of some birds, the salmon's sense of smell and the robin's sensitivity to stellar radiation.\n\nA trained person can walk across a field with a forked twig and he or she can say with certainty whether water is present below. The influence given off by the movement of water has been likened to an electric field (Pike, 1945:16 and 24). Similarly, horses during periods of drought will locate an exact spot where water is to be found below in an otherwise waterless district. Dead horses have been seen at such spots, with hoof-marks left on the ground, where the unfortunate animal tried to paw his way to water.\n\nAs a leftover from our animal past, the skill of divining in which the 'human radio set' picks up cosmic waves, magnetic energy or radioactivity is possessed by different people with varying degrees of sensitivity. 'Listening to the earth' has been likened to developing the powers of clairvoyance. Such fields and lines of currents radiate patterns of energy. They vitalise the countryside. Some spots produce more life, in the form of trees, flowers, animals, birds and minerals, than others. Cows, for example, prefer to stay in parts of a meadow which are places of energy (Pennick, 1979:38). Dowsing, with its 'inner eye', has sometimes been used to trace leylines in Britain (Miller, 1989:26). The author, however, knows of no cases where dowsing has been employed to try to trace the 'dragon veins' of fung shui.\n\nLinking Chinese fung shui and dowsing; it is interesting that an old Hakka village in Tsuen Wan, in Hong Kong's New Territories, has a well which was sunk in the position advocated by a fung shui consultant. And even during bad droughts, like that of 1963 when water was on tap for only four hours once every four days, villagers maintain the well always remained 95 per cent full (Leung, 1986:19).\n\nCase Study One\n\nThis paper now examines an actual case of fung shui, at Realty Gardens, 41 Conduit Road, Mid-Levels, on Hong Kong Island, where the author has lived since 1976. The flat in question is situated in the centre block of five blocks. A fung shui master visits the flat annually. It is said to be situated in a good geomantic spot. Many uninitiated Westerners would more likely phrase it as, 'the flat has good spatial orientation'. Both", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213275, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "77\n\nEuropeans and Chinese have commented that, on entering, one senses a feeling of tranquillity.\n\nOne Chinese lady was keen to live in Realty Gardens. She paid her deposit in 1972, shortly before the flats were completed, and she was allocated a flat in another block. On learning the fung shui in the second block was not so good as the flat examined in this case study she promptly withdrew her application. Even though she could ill afford it she relinquished her deposit,\n\nIn today's world much is happening at a rapid pace. Yet the powers of the natural environment are still important. Psychologists, sociologists and environmentalists warn of the dangers of alienation of people from nature. The Eight Chinese Elements of Nature are: fire, thunder, heaven, water (the ocean), water (rain), wind, earth and the hills. A valley with favourable fung shui is considered good for farming. A village should preferably be situated at the foot of a hill so that the vitality of fung shui flows down. Also, paths leading to or from a hamlet should meander or zig-zag so that evil spirits, which travel in straight lines, cannot follow people walking along them.\n\nMost Chinese feel they are part of nature, and, everywhere they turn, they try to imagine things are alive. Consequently, most do not move into a flat blind to fung shui principles. It is important to 'examine the earth and taste the water'. One of the 'tests' is to take a babe-in-arms into a house and see how it reacts to its surroundings. Does it cry or does it lie peaceably?\n\nUntil the late 1960s, the gracious old Foreign Correspondents' Club stood on the site where the housing complex, Realty Gardens, now stands. Many of the old features in its communal garden, such as steps, retaining walls, rainwater catchment channels and pavilions with green, sweeping, glazed tile roofs, are still there.\n\nJust as alongside a path on the edge of a village an earth god shrine is usually positioned, so, as you enter the flat in this case study you are faced by a figurine of Chung Kuei, the eighth-century physician. Wearing a maroon and white robe he stands, smiling, on a ledge by the front door. In his hand is a fan on which a bat perches. Chung is a protector against evil and an expert at catching ghosts. He may be likened to a guardian", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213277, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "Fung shu' originated from the love of, and the worship of nature. It consists, simply, of geographical advantages and orientation rules similar to requirements home builders take into consideration in many parts of the western world today (Maitland, 1977:11). Often, with the landscape being manipulated so it falls into line with culture and cosmological requirements, 'the setting can be more important than the Jewel'. For example, a house on low-lying ground may become flooded and water can affect the foundations. Fung shu doctrine maintains that dry soil which is arid and does not support vegetation is bad. Earth which is dark and moist and has an appropriate bearing pressure will bring happiness.\n\nIf the architect prepares a good design the occupants will be contented living there. A home shapes the destiny of its master and his family. If a Chinese makes a fortune while living in a particular house he is likely to believe it brings him luck. He will be loathe to move. The flat under examination in the case study has a superb view. That makes sense in any language.\n\nIn Chinese culture vital cosmic breath and magical currents, known as hei shar (*) and described as a form of primordial force, animate superbly landscaped countryside. This may be studded with pagodas, grottoes and temples. Generally, highland and ridges are yang and valleys are yin. But in every type of ground, in every range of mountains, in every bluff or rock, nature has laid down a certain quantity of yin. Or terrestrial breath. Balance between the two is important. In an idyllic place, where life forces flow from heaven along the veins of the earth, obviously, people are more likely to be content. If there is not a 'bond' between person and place, then he or she will feel miserable, and, in the extreme, illness, paralysis or death will result.\n\nBruce Lee, the popular martial arts expert and film star who died tragically in 1973 at the age of 33, lived, many believe, in an 'unlucky house' (Block, 1974:passim). A fung shu master would more likely say, 'compatibility between Lee and his home in Hong Kong were lacking.'\n\nFung shui has been described as the doctrine of nature's breath in which one 'inhales and exhales nature'. Fung shui enters every stem and every fibre (Eitel, 1882:37). Just as acupuncture is about subtle energy in the body, so fung shui is about discriminating energy in the earth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213278, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "There is a resident dragon living within Victoria Peak, as in all remarkable mountains, and it is believed to have spiritual influence over the people living below it. Energy is harnessed from cosmic forces and this affects mere mortals who inhabit the earth. Most people, the fung shui master who accompanied the author explained, need a strong 'back-up'. Such persons are likely to prefer working for the Government rather than engaging in the rough-and-tumble of private enterprise. Although it can be described as geomantic imagery, psychologically, in some ways, it is like sitting in an office chair with a high substantial back, as compared to a low-backed chair formed with slender slats. Likewise, living in a flat close to the Peak with its good topography, whose green slope is covered with a mattress of vegetation, helps provide much needed moral support.\n\nBut vital elements can be dispersed, and, with too much wind blowing and too much water flowing, cosmic breath can be excessively dissipated. Too little or 'neutral' fung shui can bring about stagnation. It is something like salt. Add too much and the food is inedible. Sprinkle too little and the meal is tasteless.\n\nAfter a heavy rain the 'eyes of Victoria Peak' (springs) open up and water courses (the arteries) flow. Slopes come alive. Water, the emblem of wealth and influence, cascades among rocks and down gullies worn over centuries. If this flow ceases, people living under the influence of the Peak will lose their fortunes. (The flat in this study also has the added advantage that it is close to water in the swimming pool). All these features provide a sound back-up in addition to being a scene on which 'one can feast one's eyes'. Here in the twilight the world can seem like a dream; the trees and bushes surge as if at anchor on the 'tide', the heave of the slope running from the Peak down to Realty Gardens comes alive.\n\nEarly in the 20th century, however, the Chinese were not at all pleased when Lugard Road and Harlech Road were constructed encircling the mountain at Victoria Gap level. People likened the effect to putting a halter around the neck of the 'Hill of Great Peace'. Nevertheless, there has not been a severe hill fire on the Peak, where erosion is limited by stands of verdant trees, bushes and undergrowth, for half a century. Figuratively, above the flat in this study the heavily overgrown, evergreen slope has 'vegetation as its hair and mist as its complexion'. The Peak is the home of a fair amount of wildlife.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213279, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "81\n\nThe vegetation on the Peak corresponds to the fung shui woods (where stillborn babies are sometimes buried) positioned at the rear of traditional, symmetrical New Territories' villages. In addition to acting as, so called, 'green dragons', untouched shelter belts and firebreaks, these fung shui groves, which may house a temple or a shrine, are considered almost sacred. These woods also act as barriers against malevolent forces. They are the homes of spirits and gods and are considered essential for the wellbeing of a village.\n\nThere are well over 300 fung shui woods in Hong Kong (Webb, 1995:44), and, although the largest covers as many as 14 hectares they average two hectares each. Historically, they provide materials for culinary, medicinal, ceremonial and structural use, if, for instance, a length of timber is required for repairs to the temple, or bamboo carrying poles are needed for weddings or funerals. Banyans, heung (incense) trees, camphor, bamboo, rose-apple, longan, lychee, mango and breadfruit, some of which play important parts in Chinese folk religion, are common in fung shui coppices. One of the best examples of a fung shui wood is in Shing Mun Country Park, at the north end of Jubilee Reservoir. This wood is reputed to be around 400 years old (Dudgeon, 1994:73).\n\nA well-sited village is not only protected from the elements, such as typhoons, heatwaves and pollution, by fung shui groves. Such a site is also sheltered by hills and spurs. In turn, graves are situated out of sight on a hill behind the village. And so, as is written in Ecclesiastes 1,4:\n\nOne generation goeth and another generation cometh\n\nthe earth abideth for ever\n\nBut sacred woods are not just found in Chinese communities. In India, Nepal, Bhutan and Japan, as well as in various parts of Europe, people have their groves where religious ceremonies are performed. The druids in ancient Britain, who were also bards and soothsayers, had sacred woods. Oaks in Sherwood and other forests were the abodes of spirits. The fruit of the oak, the acorn, was also sacred. So was the mistletoe.\n\nBut even in Hong Kong views can change and modernisation can take its toll. In the mid-1990s, a venerable fung shui banyan in a Lantau village was felled merely to improve television reception.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213281, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "83\n\nThere was a severe landslide on Fathers' Day, in June 1972, on the steep slope 200 metres to the west of the flat in this case study. After three days of torrential rains the hillside, with its excessive yang, turned to mud. When the earth is healthy humans thrive. When it is 'sick', humans suffer. The slippage extended from Po Shan Road, down to Conduit Road and below to Kotewall Road. The conclusion of the public enquiry was that extensive site development had caused the disaster. Sixty-seven people lost their lives after a 13-storey block of flats was cut off at its base and swept downhill. Life can be incomprehensible and vicious.\n\nHong Kong is not liable to seismic activity. The last earthquake, in 1918, did little damage. But a report by the late Professor S G Davies of Hong Kong University, shortly after the 1972 Kotewall Road landslip, noted fault lines. One line is said to run from Wanchai Gap over to Aberdeen, to the south of the flat in this case study. It is thus not difficult to appreciate how villagers, mentioned above, feel living at the foot of, or on the slopes of, a mountain. In the flat in this study, when it rains heavily and the slopes above turn to mud, as residents put it, 'one finds oneself gazing up at the mountain with its latent, supernatural power and wondering.' This is basically why, even if there is rhythm in the cultural landscape of nature, gentle slopes are preferred.\n\nUnderstanding the empirical ground rules of fung shui land usage, and the aesthetics of Chinese geomancy as a traditional form of spiritually based planning, can provide lessons for western architects, townplanners and environmentalists even today. Fung shui attempts to ensure that everything is in harmony with its surroundings. Its scope ranges from the planning of an entire town, to the construction of a high-rise building, to the design of an interior in an office or a home.\n\nWith respect to fung shui the owner's study, in the flat in this case study, is probably the best room in the flat. The owner has, however, been advised it would be better, even if he would miss the view, if he moved his desk around so he faced the door, rather than looking out of the window. With his back to the entrance much of the time, he always half-expects someone to come in. There is a loss of 'power'. It is not easy to concentrate. If he moved he would also not have to turn around when visitors come to see him. One's back should never face a window or a door as the force of chi is too great. The operator of a computer, which can stimulate chi, on the other hand, should face a door. If not, he or she may feel nervous and suffer stress.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213284, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "86\n\nIn England between 1697 and 1851, a tax on windows was imposed. Consequently, many were blocked up. For different reasons, Chinese living in villages in the New Territories also consider carefully before cutting a hole through a wall to construct another window or door. These are viewed as 'noses' and 'mouths'. An opening can admit evil influences and bring sickness or death. Their position, size and proportions are important. So is the way they open and swing.\n\nIn the flat in the case study the Chinese amah (maid) was frequently sick. 'Move the gas cooker,' the lady of the house was instructed. 'It is not good for the cooker to face the door.' After this was done, although it could have been coincidence, the amah said her health improved. She had faith that if the cooker was moved she would feel better. Afterwards, she assured the author she did.\n\nWith Chinese culture embracing so many aspects of the universe and influencing daily life, aesthetics have always been considered important. Door gods, for example, sometimes adorn entrances to ward off evil. In turn, colour and lighting affect both mind and wellbeing. If a person prefers dark colours, then, to balance, they should choose patterns that have light backgrounds. Colour and beauty are meant to complement.\n\nColour symbolism has been linked to the Five Elements, the forces of nature (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water), since the fourth century BC. These are not just looked upon as five kinds of fundamental matter but more as five fundamental processes. Fire, for instance, is linked to red. Not only does it look good but it protects the wearer from evil (Baker, 1981:154). For example, the talismanic red spot on the white headdress of a mourner at a funeral service; worn in the nature of an amulet, red (often vermillion) attracts good fortune. It is a yang colour: the colour for weddings and celebrations. It signifies joy, festivities, virtue and sincerity. Yet to have red paint on the end of a bamboo pole, on which the washing is hung high above the street, is not considered appropriate. It could fall and kill. Red symbolises blood.\n\nRegarding the other four primary colours which are linked to the Five Elements. Yellow (emblematic of earth), a natural and loyal colour of old China was sacred to the emperor. It is the colour of the garments of Taoist priests. It signifies longevity and is the colour for burying the dead. Geomantic blessings and charms, to ward off evil influences, are frequently written or painted on yellow paper representing the earth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213287, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "89\n\nunease (even dread) if certain lore is followed concerning the construction or the furnishing of a building. A Chinese geomancer will probably be able to give specific reasons why it is so. It is not difficult to imagine that if someone's home is 'tranquil', and that if he or she feels 'comfortable' there, that this will be 'picked up', sensitively, eventually resulting in a greater degree of self-possession and, consequently, greater accomplishment.\n\nIn Chinese communities talismanic paper emblems above door frames, like the 'Five Happinesses' (signifying long life, wealth, health and peace, love and virtue, and natural death after a full span) are common. Understanding something of metaphysics one realises the power of the negative word. The Chinese characters signifying 'Coming or leaving go in peace', painted on a strip of red paper and pasted by the entrance, although by no means hypnotic or yogic techniques, mean a great deal to many. It psychologically 'hearts are put at ease' by constantly reading such messages (a form of auto-suggestion) then the desired effect is achieved.\n\nSome Chinese symbols can be compared with an old shoe tied to the back of the car of a newly married English couple; or a horseshoe (which must hang the right way up) by the door of a cottage. Inside the parlour you might find the motto, 'Bless this house', displayed. Certainly during World War II a number of British aircraft crew members, on bombing missions over Germany, carried lucky charms, such as rabbits' paws.\n\nFung shui has been likened to the pull of gravity or high voltage electricity. Others describe it as dei mat, the veins through which the pulse of the earth can be sensed. The end result, many believe, is directly proportional to the degree of skill of the fung shui practitioner. With the cosmos in a constant state of flux his task is to analyse bad elements and to advise on cures to help balance or restore the build-up and circulation of chi. Often it is accepted the fung shui specialist cannot prevent something from happening. But if he has mastered his art he can make the effects less severe.\n\nOf course it does not always happen so. 'My fung shui lo (\"fellow\") did not tell me so much red in my flat would upset Ng Wong (the Fifth King God),' a Chinese woman told the author. 'Also, he did not forecast the death of my friend's mother. All he is concerned with now is taking on as...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213290, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "92\n\naffect tidal and wind action, such as monsoons and typhoons), to calculate and categorise the nature and effects of the elements on our universe.\n\nThe 'Five Elements' are interactive and symbolic of positive energy. They play an important role in fung shui. For instance:\n\nFire; a building should be well lighted. A lamp should be kept switched on, for example beside the entrance door, at all hours,\n\nWater; jars of salt water should be placed in strategic positions in a building, for example, behind the gas cooker to counteract harmful fumes\n\nWood; kwun yam chuk or foo kwa chuk (dwarf bamboo) (AT)\n\n富貴竹 (dracaena sanderiana virescens), sometimes called 'fortune plants' which symbolise nature and growth, should be placed in strategic positions around the home.\n\nMetal; coins, one silver and six copper (pebbles are sometimes substituted), are placed on a small plate or in some other container.\n\nEarth; in the business premises that the author visited, in the company of the fung shui master, crystal glass containers are positioned. Seven coins are placed in them as detailed under 'metal' above\n\nA large proportion of the earth is made up of crystals. Natural crystal is more effective for fung shui purposes, although 'dead' (artificial) crystal can have some effect. 'Crystal Power' has become popular in the West in what has been called the 'age of crystal' (David, 15; 1994). It has been described as 'symbolic of', and providing 'positive, invisible energy' (Smith, 1993: 20). Some claim it has the power to adjust imbalances in the atmosphere. Some Westerners believe the moment they lay a piece of crystal in their hand energy surges through their bodies and negative forces are released. It helps them meditate. It brings life into focus, it has healing power; it induces dreams and divine revelations. Not just Westerners but some Chinese fung shui masters too, believe that crystal correctly positioned in a room absorbs negative vibrations.\n\nRepresentatives of the 'Five Elements', like those listed above, are placed in strategic positions: such as near entrance doors, on shelves, on tables and on the tops of cupboards and similar places, in the business premises visited.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213291, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "93\n\nBased on the principles of nature, the Five Elements are interactive and compatible or antagonist towards each other. Thus burning Wood produces Fire, Fire leaves behind ash, namely Earth, Earth is the source of Metal, Metal can be liquified to flow like Water; and Water helps Wood to thrive, and so on. Conversely, Wood extracts goodness from the Earth; Earth muddies Water, Water quenches Fire, and Fire melts Metal. The order in which the 'Five Elements' are employed is thus important.\n\nEnergy transforms itself from one type to another in the process of its creation and existence. It can change into another form, decay or disintegrate. Energy continues moving and changing depending on the forces of nature. Some writers maintain no energy is ever lost (Smith, 1993-86). This would appear not entirely correct. Energy, in fact, can be destroyed. Mechanical energy, for example, gradually wastes away due to frictional and similar losses (Everyman's Encyclopaedia, vol.4:583).\n\nLight-refracting or bright objects, like mirrors, crystal balls and lights, help facilitate good chi flow, the vital energy that governs our lives. Similarly, hexagonal mirrors are said to have the power to reflect bad influences and to deflect harmful sha back to its source. This allows beneficial chi to circulate unimpeded. People have even questioned whether glass and other reflective curtain walling, cladding the exterior of buildings, have an effect on fung shui (Countering fung shui, 82:12).\n\nAnd so, with the aid of his eight inch by eight inch geomantic compass the author's fung shui master, on his mission to the business premises, drew shu layouts (nine-square grid diagrams) (A) of the various rooms. The positions of the doors were marked on the plan. The purpose was to locate concentrations of chi. It must be remembered the state of the cosmos does not remain static. Because of this the jars of salt water, the coins in crystal containers and the bamboo plants may need moving on a lunar-month basis. And, as the cosmos and the fung shui change, so the fortune of the person concerned alters 100. In other words, the magnetic field of the business premises can be changed by altering the positions of the representations of the Five Elements.\n\nAlso, energy must be 'stirred up'. Movement is to be encouraged because of resulting energy fields. This is brought about by such things as water fountains, which create active, positive chi, and also by children's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213294, "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "96\n\nIn the sub-tropics, in a place like Hong Kong, because of ionisation by the wind or the sun's rays, or during a thunderstorm, static electricity is commonly prevalent. Weather-sensitive people frequently feel 'depressed', irritable and nervy. Many suffer from 'typhoon head', when the atmosphere is 'heavy'. Statistics are said to show there is more violent crime in southern France when the Mistral, a strong, cold, dry wind, blows. The reason people feel such effects is because of electrically charged particles, static electricity, in the atmosphere. Ions, neutral atoms and molecules can release or take on electrons which become electrically charged in the process. Later, after the storm has passed, because of the upsurge of negative ions, those same persons feel on top of the world.\n\nBecause of factors outlined above, it could really be that, as the fung shui master maintains, metal coins and crystal have parts to play in reflecting radiation. Also fortune plants, with their non-calcified, non-woody stems, serve a useful purpose in purifying the atmosphere and reducing ions. Such precautions help promote harmony and peace in the home or workplace.\n\nMankind has always been subjected to the interchanging forces of nature. These include heat, magnetism, electricity, chemical action, motion, and natural (solar and stellar) radiation. People may find these, in some forms, disturbing. They upset peace of mind. In the modern world new technology and invisible forces have also to be considered. These include man-made radiation; toxic agents; germ warfare; nuclear-energy plants; electrical and electronic systems; computers and communication systems; radio and television waves; and space travel (Smith, 1993:96). All these can affect vibrations and energy flow to some degree. Although belief in fung shui is unlikely to die, and it will likely remain part of Chinese culture for a long time to come, nevertheless methods of dealing with it must change.\n\nCertainly, in some circumstances, fung shui can be a barrier to progress. In the case of the business establishment that the author visited, together with the fung shui consultant, the management delayed redecoration, on one occasion for several months, because it was not considered 'an appropriate time to hammer walls'.\n\nIt is only comparatively recently that conservation has been taken seriously, by 'Friends of the Earth' and similar associations. It is no longer...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213301, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "103\n\nif you wait long enough\n\nof what is prophesied is inevitable (Freedman, 1976:228). And to those who express doubts, in answer to the question 'Does fung shui work?' a master once replied: 'Do you ever ask your physician whether his treatment will be effective?'\n\nThe Chinese, including the 50 million odd diaspora, by and large, are industrious; deep down they are believers in the capitalist system. They are achievement orientated; they set great store by education and the advantages it can bring to the person with drive. After all, man is at his best when he has a strong sense of purpose. Carrying on from there, some Chinese believe 'good joss' is the just and inevitable reward of the diligent and skilful. Nevertheless, many still also believe in what can be styled the cruel apportionment of fate. This means, in effect, that when a baby 'comes down to earth and cries three times' his or her life pattern has already been decided. Yet, contrarily, most Chinese believe fate can be ameliorated by enlisting the powers of a fung shui master.\n\n'First is birth, second is luck, third is fung shui, fourth are good deeds on earth, fifth is studying.' If your fortune is good and you were born under a lucky star, that's fine. But a fung shui master can make things even better. It may take time. Investment does not always show immediate returns.\n\n15\n\nLin Yutang (Lin, 1936:301) wrote, '... although geomancy is undeniably a superstition, it has great spiritual and architectural value.' It is, of course, far more than that, and full advantage is usually taken by a competent practitioner of the interplay between luck and natural forces. A large amount seems to depend upon the cultivation of a sixth sense. Some Westerners say too much depends upon intuition and too little on logic. A Chinese might reply by asking in what other way can you handle an ancient, classical system with a name directly translated as 'wind and water'? A wind that Westerners cannot comprehend and water they cannot grasp.\n\nLike many doctrines where one is told 'to have faith', philosophical beliefs, so often, depend upon unprovable statements. Eugene Ho (Ho, 1987) asks, in his letter to the editor of the South China Morning Post, why Saint John's Cathedral, which has stood for so long, was cited by a previous Chinese letter writer as standing on a fine site which is protected by the 'dragon's vein'? Why is it not protected by the Christian God, who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213302, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "104\n\nChristians believe in, rather than by fung shur? Indeed for most religions and persuasions when faith is involved, there is usually no rational way to measure faith. Although, so often, the more rational the person's view the greater the degree of rationalisation. This does not of course imply fung shur is completely illusionary. A person must believe in the cure. So much, after all, is psychological. Many things in life are.\n\nThose who are afraid of contracting some illness become disease conscious, which helps to attract what they fear, just as those who think always in terms of health are helping to attract health. It is a case of attunement. A natural force, seemingly, turns on the switch. An aggressive attitude towards fighting disease can help prolong life. If you change your outlook you change your vibrations.\n\nOne Englishwoman told the author:\n\n\"There are electrical fields. Why can't there be other fields too, like those emanating from crystal? Again, there are things like 'thought transference'. There must also be other dimensions of which we are not really aware. Things that give out an aura.\"\n\nCertainly most Chinese and many Westerners do believe in the 'breath of the dragon'. As one Irish friend explained to the author:\n\n'Fung shui? Yes, it works so well. I'm an advocate. Believe and it will happen. Get fung shui working for you. When my Chinese wife and I last went on leave to Dublin we bought a house, largely because of fung shui, on the spur of the moment. With a street number of 80 it also has a good setting.'\n\nTo some extent fung shui is commonsense dressed up in the language of fairy tales and folklore. As people enter the next millennium (western reckoning) it is opportune to question, as mankind stands at the crossroads, whether the world should continue down a path that leads to an even greater alienation from nature and contrary to the laws of creation.\n\nAs new energies surge into the earth's fields, if man, in the home, on the job, or in the grave, as a result of the fung shui master creating a better environment, is more content, then fung shui will have achieved an important aim. If man is more content he will feel more comfortable. He will accomplish more and enjoy life more.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213311, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "113\n\nMorgan, Carole, ‘A Short Glossary of Geomantic Terms', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol 20, 1980\n\nNeedham, Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China, vol II. Cambridge University Press, 1956\n\n· ditto, vol IV, 3, 1971\n\nNoble, Sara, Feng Shui in Singapore, Graham Brash, Singapore 1994\n\nO'Brien, Joanne with Kwok Man Ho, The Elements of Feng Shui, Element Books. 1991\n\nPennick, Nigel, The Ancient Science of Geomancy: Man in Harmony with the Earth, Thames and Hudson, 1979\n\nPeplow, S H and M Barker, Hong Kong Around and About, Ye Olde Printerie Ltd, 1911\n\nPike, S N, Water Divining, A Book of Practical Instructions, Research Publications, England, 1945\n\nPotter, Jack M. 'Wind, Water, Bones and Souls: the Religious World of the Cantonese Peasant', Journal of Oriental Studies, Hong Kong University, vol. 8, 1970\n\nRossbach, Sarah, Feng Shui: Ancient Wisdom for the Most Beneficial Way to Place and Arrange Furniture, Rooms and Buildings, Hutchinson, 1983\n\nFeng Shui: The Chinese Art of Placement, Dutton, New York, 1983\n\n------ Interior Decoration with Feng Shui, 1981\n\nInterior Design with Feng Shui. How to Apply the Ancient Chinese Art of Placement, Century, 1987.\n\n-Interior Design with Feng Shui, Rider, London, 1987\n\n1\n\nShen, D C, '\"Feng Shui\" Woodlands' Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol 14, 1974\n\nSkinner, Stephen, The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui, Chinese Geomancy. Graham Brash. Singapore, 1983", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213374, "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": 196, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "183\n\nEARTH GOD AND VILLAGE SHRINES\n\nIN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG\n\nRICHARD WEBB\n\nThe investigation of spiritual landscapes and sacred places is traditionally the task of the geography of religions, itself a branch of cultural geography (Fickelei, 1962). Geographers who have examined sacred space as an expression of landscape include, and are summarized by, Mansberger (1991).\n\nWithin the set of traditional beliefs known as fung shui, in the New Territories of Hong Kong, the material prosperity of the community and its individual members depends upon that community being located in particular harmony with the landscape and in maintaining that harmony. It is a landscape, moreover, which encompasses not only the physical and aesthetic landform, but also, it is believed, the spiritual, less tangible landscape manifestations of powerful Earth forces, seen as natural hazards, which if not controlled, may adversely affect that community. However, the control of these forces and a reduction of these hazards often has a sound practical basis in a region beset by typhoons and landslips and practising wet-rice farming (Lovelace, 1983). In many ways, therefore, the landscape of the New Territories valleys and the reasons why earth god shrines, the fung shui woods behind traditional villages, and even individually venerated trees are located where they are, and why they have survived periods of adversity and cultural change, has much to do with a spiritual interpretation of that landscape.\n\nAt its most basic, fung shui is the study of the environmental and intangible forces which influence human destiny and well-being (Lo, 1992). \"The art of living in harmony with the land and deriving the greatest benefit, peace and prosperity from being in the right place at the right time is called feng shui\" (Skinner, 1982). Lovelace (1983) looks at the very close parallels between fung shui and the practice of wet rice agriculture and reveals the practical basis of much fung shui lore. A detailed analysis of the relationship between fung shui and the development of a typical yet specific New Territories village is provided by Hase (1992).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213375, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "184\n\nIn its strict forms, fung shui does not involve the presence of a deity but in the rural villages in the New Territories, especially in the Hakka villages, a belief in fung shui is intimately interwoven with an older animistic belief in earth gods and tree spirits. Fung shui is intimately interwoven with the Tao and is an aspect of popular Chinese belief systems,\n\nThe comments and examples given in this account are taken from a doctoral thesis in social forestry carried out by the author on fung shui woods in the New Territories from 1990 to 1994 (Webb, 1995b). The study identified 337 fung shui woods in the New Territories from air photographs, examined the botanical composition of 60 woods, and carried out in-depth interviews with village representatives in 20 villages to determine how villagers used and perceived their woods today.\n\nOf great importance to the fung shui of a village are the shrines to the village spirits and earth gods. The earth gods have the generic name poo sat (good spirit), but may also have their own local names. For example, the earth god's name at the Tai Wong shrine of Ma Mat Wai near Fanling is 'Hin Tan'. The earth gods are territorial because they are thought of as spirits of the locality (genii loci) in which their shrine is situated. They are typically located by a large boulder or venerable banyan tree. The earth god, in its various forms, is seen as the presiding deity of the village, its protector and arbiter of disputes. Villagers will make offerings to them in return for favours at specific times (Burkhardt, 1958)\n\nThe earth gods may also be known generically as Tai Wong (great king) and Paak Kung (paternal great uncle), and are associated with shrines also bearing these names. At first sight and without local knowledge, it is often difficult to distinguish the two, but generally the former type of shrine is the more elaborate. The wealthier the village the more elaborate is the shrine, but no study has yet been done on styles of shrine in the New Territories. Just as village houses were constructed by travelling groups of masons (Hase, 1992), so village shrines may also have been built in the same manner, so that within any one district the shrines may display the same style of design.\n\nA Tai Wong shrine may have its own stone or cement platform with a similar \"armchair\" shape to that seen in the layout of traditional graves. On the altar, the focus of the shrine, often a special stone or inscribed plaque, may be provided with a roof. To one side of the shrine there may", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213376, "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": 198, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "185\n\nbe a stone or brick fireplace in which paper money and other paper offerings are burned. Occasionally a Tai Wong may be dedicated to a particular deity, such as at Pak Kung near Sai Kung which has its Tai Wong dedicated to Tin Hau, protective goddess of fishermen. A large village may have its own Tai Wong, but it may sometimes be shared with other neighbouring villages of the same lineage, as occurs with the Lam Tsuen villages.\n\nThe Paak Kung shrines, of lesser importance, are more simply built, often no more than an \"archway\" arrangement of stones upon a flat rock, with perhaps wooden boards on which paper scrolls are pasted. In any village there would normally be several Paak Kung. The village of Pat Heung, for example, has around ten Paak Kung and earth god shrines.\n\nIn some cases, especially with the lesser ranked Paak Kung, the shrine may be the tree itself and is only marked by the presence of joss-sticks and porcelain cups for rice wine offerings, sometimes on a flat stone at the base of the tree. Examples of such tree spirit shrines may be seen by the large banyan trees behind Sheung Ling Pei, and the enormous camphor trees, Cinnamomum camphora, behind Sha Lo Wan, both on north Lantau. In both cases, the surrounding fung shui woods were felled by the Japanese during the Occupation in the Second World War, with the exception of these trees, which are now venerated for having \"saved\" the village. The camphor tree at Sha Lo Wan is one of the biggest in the Territory, with a girth of over seven metres.\n\nIn the New Territories, the fung shui tree par excellence is the banyan, Ficus microcarpa, which symbolizes longevity, fecundity, and perseverance in the face of adversity. Apart from its natural resilience in the face of typhoons, the ability of the tree to survive in an environment where wood has been at a premium is explained by Ng (1983). \"Its wood is gnarled and so cannot be used as timber, it will not flame and so cannot be used for firewood. Its very lack of useful properties ensures its invulnerability and survival. It is often favoured as a single fung shui tree, when it becomes the home of a local tree spirit and is given great respect and provided with offerings, so that it often appears to be a form of tree worship. The \"grandfather\" tree at Kuk Po is an example.\n\nSometimes the fame of a particular tree-dwelling earth god extends beyond the locality of the village. Near the village of Lam Tsuen, a venerable banyan is claimed to have a spirit which is especially efficacious.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213377, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "186\n\nin matters relating to personal relationships. During Lunar New Year, hundreds of people come from all over the Territory, even from as far away as Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island, to offer prayers at the foot of the tree and to throw red and yellow prayer flags, attached to strings weighted with stones, up into the branches.\n\nOnly in four villages was it claimed that the special trees were the home of earth gods. At Lin Au, the large, old Cinnamomum trees were planted by the villagers when the settlement was founded in order to protect the shrine that was built to honour the ancestors. The earth gods have their home in the trees and also roam about in the wood. Lin Au and Sheung Tsuen were the only cases found where this was said to happen, but it may be that such a belief could have been more widespread in the past. At Pak Kong, a grove of six trees protects the Tai Wong shrine to Tin Hau beside which is a smaller Paak Kung that is used to worship the earth gods who live in the trees. Kuk Po is also an example of an ancestral tree which is also the home of the local earth god.\n\nIn most cases, however, the tree adjacent to the shrine is there simply to provide shelter. In the study carried out by the author, a variety of reasons were given as to why specific trees were protected and the commonest reason given was that the trees protected the important shrines of the village, which were both Tai Wong and Paak Kung shrines. The shrines were situated at important fung shui locations, usually protecting the entrance points of the village from loss of chi (good luck or prosperity) and affording protection from undesirable forces. The spirits live in the shrines rather than in the trees themselves. For example, at Tai Om, camphor trees protect each of the three Paak Kung shrines in the village and trees protect four of the principal shrines in Man Uk Pin. Such trees are commonly banyan, or camphor, although other species may be used. The commonest shrine trees found during the study were;\n\n \n Ficus microcarpa\n Banyan\n 19\n \n \n Cinnamomum camphora\n Camphor\n 13\n \n \n Euphoria longan\n Longan\n 5\n \n \n Gironniera nitida\n \n 5\n \n \n Litchi sinensis\n Lychee\n 4\n \n\nin addition to 26 individuals of other less common species.\n\n19", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213378, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "187\n\nIn Ho Sheung Heung, the 'guarding star' at the entrance to the village is a bamboo. However, it is not always the case that a tree growing beside a shrine has any relationship to that shrine. At Ho Sheung Heung trees besides the southern Pauk Kung have no fung shui significance and have simply grown up there. At Tar Om trees near the main shrine have grown up in the seventy years since the shrine was built and have little, if any, fung shui importance. None of the villagers questioned thought that the fung shui woods had any sacred or spiritual value outside their fung shui importance.\n\nAnother important reason for the protection of large, old trees was that they had been planted by the ancestors. Examples are at Man Uk Pin, Ma Mat Wai, Ping Kong, and Ma Tsuek Leng. Few of these trees were individually venerated except for the 'grandfather tree' at Kuk Po which was planted by the founders of the village to honour the local earth gods.\n\nVillages often have examples of many types of fung shui tree. An example is the village of Sheung Wo Hang which has an inviolable fung shui wood in which all vegetation is protected, in addition to ancestorally planted trees which guard particular shrines and which reinforce certain fung shui locations, as well as earth god trees without shrines.\n\nIn some cases, shrines may not be dedicated to an earth god. At She Shan Tsuen in Lam Tsuen valley, a small shrine at the edge of the fung shui wood makes the spot at which hunters would gather to make offerings before the hunt. There is a parallel here with those shrines in the sacred forests of Nepal at which hunters gather to worship (Mansberger, 1991).\n\nBoth Tar Wong and Paak Kung shrines guard the important places and fung shui points of the village, such as the wells, irrigation dams, \"dragon veins\" and especially the entrances to the village. The latter are often marked by a Tar Wong shrine. Where a path or road leaves a village, invariably where an approaching path curves around the end of a fung shui wood, the site is known as \"the mouth of water\", (the flow of a road symbolising water). The site is often associated with a clump of bamboo, a large rock or a large camphor or banyan tree, or sometimes all three, known as a \"guarding star\" in fung shui terms, as it guards against excessive outflow of chi from the village.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213379, "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "188\n\nThese sites and their associated trees, which are usually of a great age and which villagers often claim were planted when the village was founded, are of fundamental importance to the fortunes of a village, more so than the fung shui woods themselves. In some villages, such as Ma Mat Wei, during the last war fung shui woods were felled so that rice could be bought for the impoverished villagers. The important individual fung shui trees, however, were never felled. Villagers will go to great lengths to protect these sites from private development and from government projects. Roads may be diverted to avoid harming such sites. While the importance of certain trees can be determined on fung shui principles, villagers who do not possess any fung shui knowledge may just call any tree they want to protect a \"fung shui tree\".\n\nShrines are in various states of repair or dilapidation according to the devotion and resources of the villagers and shrines may sometimes be completely rebuilt, such as at Tai Om where one of the main shrines was first built seventy years ago, but was rebuilt in the last few years and is surrounded by a small garden. Sometimes shrines may also be relocated, usually because of a road widening scheme, and the relocation of a shrine is a very serious fung shui matter. The relocation shrine at Wo Hop Shek, near Fanling, is an example.\n\nOccasionally a shrine may be abandoned, presumably due to a loss of efficacy by the residing deity. The Tai Wong shrine in the wood at Ho Sheung Heung is no longer worshipped, while it is the earth god, Fuk Tak Gung, who resides in the comfort of the village temple. There are also three Tze Jik shrines, which are more important than Paak Kung, protecting the village to the north, east and south. These shrines are particularly worshipped by farmers and protect the whole community.\n\nA typical layout of village shrines may be seen at Man Uk Pin, north east of Fanling. The Tai Wong shrine on the northern arm of the fung shui wood protects the whole village. The water spirit Paak Kung, by the dam on the stream which borders the fung shui wood, ensures the safety of the drinking water supply. There are also four other Paak Kung facing each of the four directions, with trees planted to protect them, including two within the fung shui wood, and one in the middle of the village. The villagers of Man Uk Pin take their spiritual protectors very seriously. Several villagers claim to have seen the spirit of Tai Wong himself while they were walking along the path at night. He was seen to be dressed in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213380, "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": 202, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "189\n\ncourt robes and glided along the path only to disappear into the base of a tree once he drew parallel to the watcher. Villagers have also seen fires at the Paak Kung shrines even during rain\n\nThe village with the greatest number of shrines, out of the 20 villages examined in detail in the study, is Sheung Tsuen (Pat Heung). The more important Tai Wong shrine is housed in the 200 year old temple and is the governor of the village. There are also ten other Paak Kung and earth god shrines located around the village. Six of the Paak Kung protect the village at night while four earth gods of a lower rank are located in each of the four directions and are 'on duty' for twenty four hours a day as general security guards and to prevent people from becoming lost. All the shrines are worshiped on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month and on major festivals\n\nWorship at the shrines varies from village to village, although it is common that worship is carried out on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar new year. Seven of the villages performed rites at their shrines at this time. Offerings may also be made with prayers at the main Chinese festivals, particularly during Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Harvest festival, as well as at weddings, births and the birthdays of elders and ancestors and for general thanksgiving.\n\nSome villages have their own special ceremonies. At Ma Mat Wai, the Paak Kung shrine to the earth god 'Hin Tan' is worshipped on 'farmer's day' on July 14th and at the harvest festival on August 15th. The shrine at Pak Kong is worshipped on the birthday of the popular sea-goddess Tin Hay. The Hei Shą Fuk festival is only carried out at Wo Hop Shek, near Fanling, at the end of the last month of the lunar year and at the end of the first month of the lunar calendar. Each family in the village contributes $30 to buy pork which is cooked with vegetables on stoves built into the Tai Wong shrine. February 13th of the lunar calendar is the god Hung Shing's birthday in Ho Sheung Heung, which is even more important for the village than Lunar New Year. For three days before the god's birthday, an opera is held in front of the Tze Tong while a feast and dragon dance takes place on the day itself. In June a feast day is also held to commemorate two officials, Chou and Wong, sent by the Emperor to save the village from pirates. This may represent those officials who came to rescind the Imperial evacuation order in 1669. The festivals in Ho Sheung Heung are organized by the master of the temple but in other", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213381, "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "190\n\nvillages, worship at the shrines is carried out on an individual or family basis usually involving the elderly ladies of the family.\n\nApart from occasional worship within the village, the earth gods and tree spirits are regularly given wider recognition. It is believed that over time a spiritual malaise builds up in an area, resulting from disputes, illness, deaths and general wrong-doing, that requires a major ceremony to cleanse and restore spiritual balance and harmony. The expense involved with holding such a ceremony means that only a group of villages will be able to afford a Da Chiu ceremony every ten years. The whole community is involved and overseas members will make a point of returning for the Da Chiu \"because we want our children to know our old customs\", and because having one's name registered on the Bon, or roll of village names, confirms one as a member of the village. It is a public statement of unity and of belonging to the community. For a fuller description of the Da Chiu see Ward and Law (1993).\n\nThe main temporary structure at the Da Chiu is the temple which holds every god worshipped or known in the district, including the earth gods, well gods and tree spirits. A small ceremony will be held at the fung shui tree at which the residing spirit is invited to enter a sweet potato into which a bamboo is tucked bearing the name of the god on a piece of red paper. The god is then brought to the temple and after the Da Chiu is returned to its tree or shrine with due ceremony.\n\nThe presence of shrines and large, old venerated trees adjacent to fung shui woods, are parallel features to those found in sacred forests in India and Nepal (Mansberger, 1991). They are features which help to classify the fung shui woods of the New Territories of Hong Kong as a form of sacred wood, or culturally protected forest, unique to South China, but with parallels throughout southern Asia.\n\nREFERENCES\n\nBurkhardt, V.R. (1958) Chinese Creeds and Customs South China Morning Post 3 69\n\nFickeler, P. (1962) Fundamental Questions in the Geography of Religions In Wagner, P. & Mikesell, M. (eds) Readings in Illinois, 94-117", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213382, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "191\n\nHave, P. (1992) Sheung Wo Hang In Knapp, R. (ed) Chinese Landscapes, the Village as Place University of Hawaii Press, Hong Kong Baptist College\n\nLo, Raymond (1992) Feng Shui and Destiny Tynron Press, Leis, UK\n\nLovelace, G.W. (1983) Man, Land and Mind in Historic South Coastal China, an ecological and diachronic consideration of Chinese wet-rice agricultural settlements in the North West New Territories of Hong Kong. Unpubl. PhD thesis University of Hawaii\n\nMansberger, J.R. (1991) Ban Yatra. A Bio-Cultural Survey of Sacred Forests in Kathmandu Valley PhD thesis University of Hawaii University Microfilms International Ann Arbor Michigan\n\nNg, P.Y.L. & Baker, H. (1983) New Peace County A Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region Hong Kong Hong Kong University Press\n\nSkinner, S. (1982). The Living Earth Manual of Feng Shui. Routledge and Kegan Paul London\n\nWard, B.E. & Law, J. Chinese Festivals in Hong Kong The Guidebook Company, Hong Kong\n\nWebb, R. (1995b). The Fung Shui Woods of Hong Kong A Study of Culturally Protected Woodlands in the New Territories of Hong Kong Unpublished PhD Thesis School of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213442, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "CHOK HUNG vs. LI FUI CHOI\n\n\"No enquiry has ever been made to ascertain what Chinese law is. It is an extraordinary fact that the Court of this Colony, in which the Chinese live and trade as freely as Englishmen and citizens of other countries, should do with regard to the Chinese what it would never dream of doing with regard to Frenchmen or Germans or Americans; and not only that, but that it should be entirely in ignorance of Chinese law on any subject which concerns the family life and family law of those who form the bulk of its inhabitants, which is so often before the Courts—its marriage law, and the rights of property it gives; its law applicable to children. We are in the dark as to the law of majority, as to the customary law of China generally, and above all as to its law of succession. The attitude of the Court has been to let the troublesome question wait until it is definitely raised by the parties. I myself have been guilty of this, though I have rebelled more than once or twice.\n\nPage 20\n\nDuring the last half century, there have been three such enquiries, of which the results have been published. I refer, of course, to the Report of the Committee appointed in 1948,1 Greenfield's article on marriage,2 and the report and recommendations on the same subject by the Attorney General and Secretary for Chinese Affairs in 1960.2 The latter two publications do not deal with any Chinese customary law of marriage particularly obtaining in the New Territories, but the first does deal with certain aspects of Chinese customary law peculiar to the New Territories.\n\nIf a search is made of the law reports, only two cases will be found where the particular Chinese customary law obtaining in the New Territories was considered. Prima facie, that is a remarkably small number for 57 years of law reporting, and it is worthwhile probing the reasons for this dearth of case law.\n\nFirstly, the Chinese much prefer to compose their disputes or to refer them to extra-judicial arbitration than to a court of law.**\n\nSecondly, in deference to this general desire of the litigants, the District Officers arranged for the bulk of the disputes which came before them, in their Small Debts Courts or when they sat as Assistant Land Officers to decide summary land cases, to be settled out of court, most", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213457, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "20 \n\nto the landlord at the end of the 1st moon in the following year \n\nIn the case of vegetable land the same land officer stated that the tenancy is normally given up at the end of the second moon. \n\n114 \n\nRent for paddy land is paid in cash or in “kuk” either once a year or after each rice harvest. Rent for vegetable land is usually paid in cash. The customary right of the tenant to request the landlord to reduce the rent in time of a poor harvest, which has already been mentioned, still exists but the request must be made before the crop is actually harvested so that the landlord may examine the crop himself.' \n\nIn the appeal case cited above, Williams, Acting C. J. also decided that the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance applied generally to the New Territories other than in New Kowloon. 17 Obiter the learned Chief Justice opined that the Ordinance did not apply to agricultural land wherever situate in the Colony \n\nTo complete this review of the Chinese customary law of land in the New Territories we must enter the realm of geomancy The most concise statement of the belief in “fung shui” is also one of the earliest:- \n\nTHE \n\nThe general religious beliefs as to the relations of the spirits with the land are embraced under the name \"Fung shui\", \n\nmeaning \"wind and water”— the two great moving elements in nature. The whole earth, with all that grows out of it, is full of spirits good and bad, which have their own prejudices about the use and occupation of their haunts, and require proper attention from the human beings in their neighbourhood; so it clearly behoves any one intending to build a house or a grave, a road or a railway, to ascertain on the best authority what site or direction he should chose In its origins, fung shui can undoubtedly claim to be based on feelings and ideas natural to human nature, and there is much wisdom in it, which even our modern science cannot entirely ignore. Thus \"fung shui\" forbids the overlooking of other houses or places, and the setting of one grave just above another: for such an action would show a spirit of arrogance and presumption. It sets great store by wild trees, which are for this reason carefully preserved and even worshipped near the villages; and certain large or ancient trees are objects of special veneration. \n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213458, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "21\n\n \n 20\n Natural features are believed to represent animals or figures, such as a girl gathering flowers. Objections on the basis of “fung shui” belief have been raised by villagers when public works have been undertaken. If any project is likely to affect the “fung shui\" of an Hakka village, the villagers believe that a \"tun fu\" ceremony held by a geomancer will safeguard the village. Even in 1912, however, the old ideas of \"fung shui\" were being modified so far as they proved incompatible with foreign laws and ideas; and nowadays the belief is dying out gradually among the younger generation.\n \n\n124\n\n“Fung Shui” objections also occur in the domestic field, to the opening of windows in a house that faces another or a temple. Such a window is thought to be a voracious tiger. A lamp flashing in the direction of another house is counted equally obnoxious. Such objections are mainly confined to Cantonese, but the Hakka, from their greater belief in animism, are more concerned with the \"fung shui” of trees and rocks.\n\nThe siting of graves, as already indicated, is also influenced by \"fung shui\" belief. For the first five years or so, a body is usually buried in an earth grave (wuct chong). Then it is exhumed and the bones are placed in an earthenware funerary pot (kam tap). Such earth graves and earthenware pots are sited in groups where the \"fung shui\" is good. Building or cultivation near such sites is not permitted. If the family or clan of the deceased is wealthy, then the funerary pot holding the bones is usually installed in a masonry grave, which again is sited according to the principles of \"fung shui\" belief, usually on a hill (shan fan). A half-circle in front of such a grave with a radius of ten yards is regarded as sacrosanct, and any disturbance of that ground is, by custom, forbidden.\n\n126\n\nBefore leaving the subject of land, it should be observed that even in the New Territories, the Chinese customary law may be excepted in cases involving land by the provisions of the Ordinance.3\n\nMarriage\n\nThe Chinese customary law of marriage, concubinage, and divorce obtaining in the New Territories does not appear to differ from that same customary law to be found in the Colony.12 From time to time,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213548, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "113\n\nCHINA COAST PIDGIN ENGLISH\n\nANNE AND STEPHEN SELBY\n\nHundreds of millions of years ago, the dinosaurs ruled the earth. They were an efficient, diversified group admirably suited to their environment. Over a long period, they flourished and in their turn, they subtly affected the environment they lived in. During the period the dinosaurs roamed the earth, flowering plants as we know them today evolved.\n\nAgain over a long period, they died out. Their fossils give us clues about their appearance, their environment and their lifestyle. Some of their relatives have evolved into species which survive today.\n\nLooking at China Coast Pidgin English is like studying dinosaurs. Only the barest traces of Pidgin survive. Because the language is one of history's losers, it has, like the dinosaurs, been characterized as clumsy, outmoded and comical.\n\nWe should like to devote this article to looking at the bones, without preconceptions or prejudice and helping to reconstruct the animal for you, together with its environment, its origins and its demise.\n\n\"Pigeon English\", says Hobson Jobson, the Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases published in 1886 by Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, is \"the vile jargon which forms the means of communication at the Chinese ports between Englishmen who do not speak Chinese, and those Chinese with whom they are in the habit of communicating\n\nMiss Isabella Bird, whose book, \"The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither\" published in 1883 is cited in Hobson Jobson, wrote\n\n\"The Pidgin English is revolting, and the most dignified persons demean themselves by speaking it... How the whole English-speaking community, without the distinction of rank, has come to communicate with the Chinese in this baby-talk is extraordinary.\n\n1\n\nMany sources on Pidgin refer to it as \"baby talk.” Objective accounts", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213732, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "Table 24\n\nOccupations of Boatmen, 1921\n\n \n Occupations\n Northern District: males (land)\n Northern District: females (land)\n Southern District: males (land)\n Southern District: females (land)\n Southern District: males (boat)\n Southern District: females (boat)\n \n \n Boat crew\n 303\n 352\n 43\n 6%\n 54\n 12.6%\n \n \n Junk masters\n 176\n 47\n 4%\n 36\n 37\n 5%\n 43\n 7.29%\n \n \n \n 229\n 28\n 1%\n 52\n \n 12\n 1%\n \n \n \n Cargo boats general\n 111\n 29\n 9%\n 16\n 1\n 6%\n \n \n \n \n \n 18\n \n 24%\n I\n \n 0.2%\n \n \n \n \n coal\n 6\n \n 1.6%\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n fuelwood\n 5\n \n 1.3%\n 1\n \n 10%\n 1\n \n \n \n fish\n 11\n \n 3.0%\n 4\n \n 4.2%\n \n \n \n \n lime\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n rice\n 40\n 10\n 8%\n 2\n \n 2.1%\n \n \n \n \n \n 8.3%\n \n \n 1.7%\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 18\n \n 24%\n 2\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 0\n \n 5%\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n stone\n 15\n \n 4.0%\n 3\n \n 3.1%\n I\n \n \n \n Water\n \n \n \n \n \n 3.4%\n \n \n \n \n salt\n T\n \n \n [\n \n \n \n \n \n \n earth\n \n \n \n H\n \n \n \n \n \n \n Hawker boats\n 16\n \n 2.1%\n 11\n \n 2.6%\n \n \n \n \n Coolie boats\n 5\n \n 0.7%\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Ferry boats\n 7\n \n 0.9%\n \n \n 0.2%\n \n \n \n \n Tow boats\n 5\n \n 0.8%\n 6\n \n 0.8%\n 13\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 0.8%\n \n 0.8%\n \n \n Misc sampans and family boats\n \n \n \n \n \n 0.5%\n \n \n \n \n Divers\n I\n \n 10%\n &\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 13\n \n 6%\n 77\n \n 100%\n \n \n \n \n \n 75\n \n 10%\n 280\n \n 65\n 1%\n \n \n \n \n 14\n \n 1.9%\n 10\n \n 2.3%\n \n \n \n \n \n 4\n \n 1.0%\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 25\n \n 26\n 0%\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 3\n \n 0.4%\n 14\n \n 3.3%\n \n \n \n \n \n 5\n \n 0.7%\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 0.1%\n 2\n \n 0.5%\n \n \n \n Boat Cleaners\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n TOTAL\n 371\n \n 100%\n 96\n \n 100%\n 59\n \n \n \n \n 77\n \n 100%\n 755\n \n 100%\n 430\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 100%\n \n \n\n*Includes New Kowloon\n\nIt will be seen that the occupations of the floating population were almost exclusively conducted from boats. If the occupation was landward, it was closely connected with a marine base. Those boat people, for instance, recorded as fishmongers were almost certainly acting as the landward agency for a family fishing boat. Between the land people who were fishermen and boatmen and the floating population strictly so called, 51% of the total population of Southern District was normally working or resident on boats (59.7% if sailors in ocean-going ships and steam launches are included). Interestingly, in 1921, of all the mariners recorded (in both Northern and Southern Districts) and to repeat, this figure must be read with care-21.3% were operating cargo boats, hawker boats, or passenger sampans and ferry boats rather than fishing. This is a salutary reminder of just how", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213788, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "111 tablets were set up on a table before the picture. The one in the middle is dedicated to Taishang Laojun (styled Taishang Hunyuan Jiaozu Daode Tianjun) and the masters of the priest. On the right was one for the ancestors of the groom styled Pengshi Tangshang Shigaozhengzu Kaobi shenwei (“Founding ancestors, and great grandfather and grandfather\"). On the left-hand side was one for the gods of the four domains Heaven, Earth, Water, and Yang. Offerings on the table included plates full of homemade red-colored buns from, I was told, each household of the village.\n\nThe rite started at a quarter to 7 p.m. and continued, with intermissions, until about half past 4 a.m. the next morning. The assistant who dressed as a woman joined the priest in most of the rites, with the exception of the first rite “invitation of gods”, and probably the last one of “seeing off the gods” which seems to have been performed by the priest alone, and the rite of “pacifying the kitchen god\" which was performed by the \"woman\" assistant alone. The assistant held a fan in one hand and a handkerchief in another. The two danced together, forming postures in which the priest kicked at his \"female\" assistant. The rituals made frequent use of the horn, the divination block, and mudra formations. A third assistant played percussion instruments to their accompaniment.\n\nThe series of rituals begin with an invitation of gods. I recorded in my notebook that in the final section of the rite the priest faced the table at the ancestral altar and mentioned langming and gongming in a recitation about the purpose and scope of the ritual. I have already mentioned the rituals connected with the maintenance of an army under the control of ancestors. Another important session is the Jianchao, \"witnessing the Chao”, which is an offering of a raw pig. The pig was placed before the table at the altar, with its head facing inside. The offering included the whole pig, with even blood and hair. On the back of the pig's neck, three cuttings had been made; fixed in the middle one were incense sticks and the two sides candle sticks. The chicken song should have been performed in the series. Some of the villagers present expected to hear it. But the priest and his \"female\" assistant omitted the singing because they had not recovered from their sore throats that had resulted from the Anlong rite they performed at Cheng Lan Shue a few days ago.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213803, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "126\n\n47\n\nform of incense ashes rather than tablets suggests that the ancestor halls did not use tablets to represent ancestors individually. It is also found in the Yingsheng (\"Reception of the Holy\") dedicated to the main honoured gods during the Jiao festivals, and the Yingshen Guiwei (\"Escorting gods to their places\") during the Hongchao festival of Fanling, both conducted by Cantonese Daoist priests in the New Territories. An elder of Kam Tin compared the Yingsheng ritual with the ancestral hall ritual found in the Qingle ancestral hall of Kam Tin, to which I shall refer below. I am not sure if a cloth “bridge” is used in this ancestral hall ceremony.\n\nOp cit pp 142-144. In a recent visit to Cheng Tau, a woman in her 60s referred to the ancestral hall as a-gong ha (\"the Place of Ancestors\"), which seems to have been the more usual expression for ancestral halls among the Hakka. Compare the expression with Bak-gong ha ('the Place of the Bak-gong earth god'). It is interesting that the title of this category of earth god, whose territory is more limited than the dawang, shares the expression for \"elder brother of grandfather\".\n\nibid p. 224 » 10\n\n174\n\nibid p 160\n\nDiscussion of this aspect of ancestral worship is summarized in C Fred Blake, Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, The University Press of Hawaii, 1981, pp 92-93, 115 n 1, 116 n 2. A possible example is the case of Wo Hang, N. T. where an ancestral hall of the second fang houses the spirit tablets of the first and second generation. See Allen John Lueck, Lun Chun, Land is to live: A study of the concept of isu in a Hakka Chinese village, New Territories, Hong Kong, unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1985, p 273.\n\nCompare H G H Nelson, \"Ancestor Worship and Burial Practices\", in Arthur P. Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 263-267, on the shen-ting which fulfilled the functions of domestic altars for the households in each area” in a Cantonese village in the New Territories. He observes that the shenting \"occupy a place half way between [tang ancestral halls] and domestic altars”.\n\nVol under Donga jie (\"Winter festival\")\n\nTON Op cit. pp 147-148\n\nOp cit. p 12\n\nOp cit. p 176\n\n100\n\nIt is interesting to note the distribution and context of Mountain Songs. It is interesting to note that Mountain Songs were sung only by the male villagers (in some festivals with women hired from other villages) in the Cantonese villages whose dialect is known to others as daaih ga wo (\"big family language\"), and which correspond to the area of the five big clans. In some of the other Cantonese villages, e.g. in Shatin and Saikung, Mountain Songs were sung by the women on the eve before a wedding at the bride's home. Mountain Songs, and related pre-marital courtship, was more popular among some female Cantonese villagers in the Kowloon area who cut grasses for sale as fuel. The livelihood of these women, like that of the Hakka immigrants, depended more on the city. I know much less", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213831, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "156\n\nIn recent years, mass emigration to the cities has further weakened the lineage tradition at some villages. Only the Mos at Mok Ka and the Los at lower Shek Lau Po seem to have maintained the status of their lineages. As the strongest lineage in Tung Chung, the Mos managed to rebuild their ancestral hall, the Mo-yu-t'ang, and continue to visit the graves of their focal ancestors collectively. As for the Lo lineage at lower Shek Lau Po, the reconstruction of their ancestral hall, the Lo-yu-chang t'ang, in the 1970s, as a centre for ancestor worship, contributed to the reinforcement of lineage identity. Nevertheless, the majority of Tung Chung's villagers worship their ancestors inside their family halls.\n\nThe worship of the earth god in Tung Chung also occurs on a small scale. Symbolically, the earth god stands for the spirit of the village at which he is located, and is represented usually by a rock at an open-air shrine or by an old banyan tree. Variously known as Ta-wang (great king) or Po-kung (lord or paternal great-uncle), the earth god guards a village at its entrance or rear. As a guardian deity at the basic level of rural organization, the god helps to mark the territorial line between villages. In Ngau Au, for example, four Po-kungs are located there at both the entrance and the rear of the village. Three of them, as a village elder confirmed, are more than three hundred years old. At Mok Ka, earth gods are enshrined, two by the stream and one at the village entrance, and one at the rear of the village. As the oldest village, Shek Mun Kap has the largest earth god, represented by a giant boulder.\n\nOn the 1st and 15th of every lunar month, during the major festivals, and on the earth gods' collective birthday, Ta-wang or Po-kung are offered sacrifices. On auspicious days of their choice, villagers also come to pray for the god's blessings and repay his protection. The ceremonies concerned include the display of wine and animal sacrifices in front of the shrine, the spraying of the wine on the ground, the burning of paper offerings, and kowtow to the god. Compared to ancestor worship, the earth god worship functions more directly to enhance the village identity, especially among individual members of a mix-lineage community. In Tung Chung, however, the ceremony has never taken the elaborate form of the tso-she (doing the she), i.e., special collective rituals and celebratory activities consisting of a feast in honour of the neighbourhood god at various times of the year. Being", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213832, "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": 184, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "157\n\nlimited by the size of its villages and their economic status, Tung Chung did not adopt the tso-she ceremony in the earth god worship as Kwangtung's countryside did in the 1920s. Again, worship is mainly on a personal, rather than village, basis.\n\nThe most important supra-individual/lineage inter-village social activities in Tung Chung, as remembered by the older generation, were the chiao ceremony and the Houwang's Birthday Festival. Literally meaning sacrifice or offering, the chiao is a large-scale Taoist ceremony, performed to wipe away evil, forestall calamities, restore peace, and renew life in the way of cosmic harmony for the entire population of a community. It consists of a series of rituals, which are commonly called ta-chiao (arranging sacrifices or making offerings). In spite of its rich meaning, the chiao can be better understood as a festival with a dual purpose: giving thanks to the deities and offering sacrifices to the spirits of the dead. Basic items of activity include chanting by Taoist priests, called nun-mo-lao (chanting fellows), inviting local deities to the altar placed in a matshed, going to the puppet show and the communal meals, and joining a parade through the villages. Beginning in the late Ch'ing, the chiao ceremony was held in Tung Chung regularly in the 14th lunar month, and especially after plagues had taken many lives there. The Shek Mun Kap village, being the oldest village in the area, served as the locale. According to an old villager, the village became a local venue of social and economic activities after some shops were established there. Villagers liked to gather at the place to gamble and chat. It was, therefore, a suitable centre for popular festivals.\n\nAs an inter-village ceremony, the chiao required donations from all households at every village. From each village, a man was chosen as yuan-shou (leader of worship) by casting the divining blocks in front of the earth god at the entrance of Shek Mun Kap. He had to pass the divination three times in a row. These men took charge of money collection, the preparations for the occasion, and the hiring of matshed and stage builders, the puppet show troupe and the nun-mo chanters, etc. They also acted as the village representatives in assisting the ceremony. At the site of the chiao ceremony, in front of the earth god shrine at Shek Mun Kap, a matshed was set up temporarily to enshrine the Houwang image \"invited\" from the local temple. Oblations, joss sticks, and candles were put in front of the idol. Erected behind the earth god shrine was the gigantic bamboo and paper figure.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213836, "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": 188, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "161\n\nthe community from calamity.\" The temple is nothing more than a small room of about 50 sq ft with simple decoration. On the altar an idol representing the deity is enshrined. At the corner of the room, there is a place for the earth god. As observed, incense is occasionally offered at this unfrequented temple.\n\nEven smaller in size is the wooden Ta-wang Palace at Ma Wan Chung. Hung there is a 1989 canopy with the title \"the Pantheon of The Earth God in Southeast and the Empress of Heaven\" (天后地主大王). The temple thus seems to serve as a Ta-wang shrine for individual worshippers at the village, as well as a temple of the Empress of Heaven for the fishing community in the vicinity. Fishermen, or former fishermen, there all regard themselves as members of the Tung Chung community. They settled ashore at their shacks 40-50 years ago. They also have ancestral graves in the area. Now more than 400 people from 48 households are official residents of the Fishermen's Village. Some of them have even managed to acquire and expand homesteads. Intermarriage between them and settlers at other villages has become acceptable. While fishermen in other regions usually worship the Empress of Heaven as their patron goddess, Tung Chung's fishing population are mainly Houwang worshippers. They have donated money to support opera shows during the deity's birthday festival and formed an association called Sheng-li t’ang which has actively taken part in festivities in celebration of the Houwang's feast day.\n\n40\n\nNotwithstanding the establishment of the Ta-wang Palace, as pointed out by a settler at the fishermen's village, only a few of them have become frequent visitors to this temple. The Houwang, as Tung Chung's principal god occupying a higher position in the pantheon hierarchy than other deities, remains the most popular deity in the locale, and the Houwang Temple has all along drawn the biggest crowd of worshippers from the community.\n\nFacing the Tung Chung Bay, the Houwang Temple is located at Sha Tsui Tau (see the map of Tung Chung). There is an adjacent open space in front of the temple, now used mainly for the holding of the annual festival commemorating the deity's feast day. The earliest dated ritual item inside the temple, a bell cast with the date of the 30th year of the Ch'ien Lung reign, suggests that the temple might have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213837, "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": 189, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "162\n\nbeen built in 1765. Since its establishment, the building has been renovated several times, in 1878, 1910, 1962, and 1978.7 The first recorded reconstruction, that is the one in 1910, is evident on the commemorative tablet installed on the interior wall of the temple. It is fortunate that the architecture through all these ages has retained its original style and character,\n\nThe temple, which can be considered a well-endowed and elaborate structure for its time, consists of three halls. In the main hall, a wooden idol of Houwang is installed at a shrine, covered with a canopy with the title \"Imperial Bestowed Loyal and Brave Marquis Yang\" (JAKE) written on each side. Clay statues of a civil official and a military official stand on the left and the right, respectively, as attendants to the local god. Enshrined in the side hall on the left are three spirit tablets. The one in the middle is for the pioneer villagers who established the temple; the one on the left is for those who donated the construction fee; the one on the right is for the men in charge of the reconstruction. In the side hall on the right, secondary divinities, such as mountain gods and earth gods, are enshrined. (See the floor plan of the temple.)\n\nThe facade of the temple is decorated by murals of scenes on walls and doors. On the left and right tips of the roof, there are streaked clay decorations in three dimensions. Figures of the martial arts, embellished with coloured glaze, are installed on the central ridge of the roof. It is recorded that these ceramic figures, of high quality workmanship, were manufactured at the well-known Shekwan kilns in 1910. In terms of structure and design, the Houwang Temple can be considered architecture of characteristic style. If the construction of a temple reflects the wealth of a community, Tung Chung's Houwang Temple seems to indicate that people there fared quite well before the locale declined into a periphery along with the shift of Hong Kong's economic core.\n\nIt is also surmised that a village coalition was being formed at the time of the construction of the Houwang Temple. As hundreds of immigrants moved into the New Territories after the \"Coastal Evacuation\" order in the early Ch'ing had been abolished, cult worship might have contributed to social integration and community building. Tung Chung's Houwang Temple, as mentioned above, is believed to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213847, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "172\n\nmeans of legitimizing their permanent residency in the district and increasing their local influence and power. When some seamen returned home, after foreign steamships had significantly reduced the recruitment of sailors from Hong Kong in the 1950s, they had become so unfamiliar with local affairs, as a result of their long leave from home, that even if they were elected village representatives on the Tung Chung's Rural Committee established in 1950 under government auspices, they served mainly as liaison men. Newer settlers at Ma Wan Chung, with their wealth and their leading role in organizing activities to commemorate the Houwang's feast day festival, have actually been among the leading local social élites, though not necessarily holding formal official positions.\n\nAdaptability and Tenacity: The Tradition of the Houwang Worship\n\nIn effect, the Houwang worship transcends blood ties and bridges the gap between old and new settlers, and thus functions to maintain a strong village coalition in Tung Chung. As a multi-lineage community, Tung Chung can be used as a case to support Judith Strauch's argument that economic and ritual cooperation and overarching unity, implicit in shared \"native place,\" instead of constant internal conflict and all-round uneasiness, can prevail in a mix-surname settlement.** It also fits Burton Pasternak's model of “villages in which families of different surnames joined forces and played down agnatic differences for the sake of survival.\"84\n\nIt is indeed in the villagers' interest to accept newcomers to the community, in order to make up for shortages of material and human resources.\n\nThis receptive and inclusive feature of local culture also grew out of a universal cult centering around the village coalition temple. While ancestor worship is only an individual or family/lineage activity and the worship of the earth god and Hsuan-t'an is usually on an individual or village basis, religious and social rituals in honour of the Houwang involve mass participation by the territorial community and work to renew collective consciousness of local identity repeatedly and systematically. During the time when the chino was held in the area, the Houwang as the principal local deity also played a role in that large-scale communal festival. The Houwang worship continued to dominate local religious life, and was even promoted by concentrating\n\n|\n\n|", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213851, "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "176\n\nThe Floor Plan of Houwang Temple\n\nC\n\nH\n\nH\n\nA: Yang Houwang (E) B: Military official (4) C: Civil official (X) D: Earth god (±)\n\nE: Other deities (F)\n\nF: Stone altar ()\n\nG: Ritual paper Burner ( )\n\nH: Earth god (1)\n\nI: Small yard (X#)\n\nJ: Window\n\nK: Commemorative Tablet (大奚山東西涌姜山主兩相和好永遠照納碑)\n\nL: Commemorative tablet (ALL)\n\nM: Commemorative tablet (EMI)\n\nN: Commemorative tablet (EITH LO)\n\nO: Iron bell (£)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213897, "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": 249, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "223\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTRACES OF HOUTU'S (后土) CULT IN HONG KONG\n\nCAROLE MORGAN\n\nI first became aware of Houtu stones in the course of my research on geomancy at the Aberdeen and Diamond Hill cemeteries. One of the earliest references to Houtu is found in the Zuozhuan, a work compiled in the III century BC. Under the 29th Year of Duke Zhao (昭), a commentary states that Earth is the ruler of all things, that his divine persona is generally called Houtu, and that his spirit is named Dragon Gouji. During the Han dynasty, the skeptic Wang Chong (王充) (-27c - 100 AD) amplified this definition by remarking that: “The digging of graves disturbs the Earth... [hence] the Earth god must be propitiated with offerings of millet, rice-cakes and soup”. (A Forke, 1925, vol II, p. 400 & 510). I was therefore not surprised to find traces of this once powerful deity in the cemeteries I visited.\n\nYet these traces were puzzling. Almost every grave featured a small stone with an inscription which stated “X family's Houtu shan (山)”. Given that in this context shan means \"burial site”, the text appeared to imply that Houtu should not be read as the name of the deity, but as two words hou tu (土) meaning \"[boundary of the] land behind the grave\", even though many stones were aligned with the grave's headstone. It could be argued that this contradiction represents an unavoidable concession to the non-standard size of certain plots, and should not detract from the stones' boundary marker function. The accuracy of this impression was confirmed by two grave diggers, who indicated that the stones were meant to prevent one grave from encroaching on the plot of another. When I questioned these men on the use of the graph 后 for \"at the back of\" instead of the more common 後, they replied that it was a matter of convenience, the first graph being easier to carve than the second. Though the explanation sounded plausible, I found it unconvincing. By then I had noticed that in front of almost every stone, small metal tubes had been permanently fixed to serve as incense stick holders. At the very least, the presence of these tubes suggested the performance of some kind of ritual.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213899, "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": 251, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "225\n\nshuppansha, 1987, pp. 21-57)\n\nTo my mind, it follows from the above quotation, that the Liang considered Houtu the land contract witness and hoped that by constructing a shrine in his honour, they could prevail upon him to preserve the plot's integrity.\n\nThe Liang tomb, however, is not the only trace of Houtu's survival in Hong Kong. Other, less elaborate examples of his cult also exist at Aberdeen. Here, two very similar stones, from different graves, show clear traces of a religious dimension. One of these is engraved with the words, “Houtu spirit of the Xu family's site” (Xu shan Houtu zhishen). The other is even more explicit though worded somewhat differently. Its inscription reads, “Houtu longshen”.\n\nIn the absence of a family name and since \"long\" is another geomantic term for site, the text can be taken to mean “Site of Houtu's spirit”. While it is tempting to see in the juxtaposition of “dragon” and Houtu an echo of the Zuozhuan's definition, such an interpretation would stretch the bounds of credibility. What is plain from the stones' inscriptions is that they function as simple shrines.\n\nOn the basis of the evidence outlined above, I am now convinced that all Houtu stones are first and foremost shrines at which family members propitiate the Earth god for the disturbance they have caused him - just as Wang Chong recommended. The proposition that stones are boundary markers is a tribute to the creative power of folk etymology. It should, however, not be allowed to obscure the fact that Houtu stones embody vestiges of an ancient cult which originated more than two thousand years ago.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213909, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "236\n\nThe rituals performed by both the 'red hat' and the 'black hat' professional religious specialists, often connected in one way or another with mortuary rites, continue as before. The difference being that before redecoration the ritual performances in the half light, by 'red hats' in particular, accompanied by the boom of their ox horns blown at intervals during the rituals, provided an even more exotic and eerie scene.\n\nThe former layout of the temple consisted, as you entered the temple from the street, of the main hall dedicated to the Lord of T'ai Shan. This led through to the rear hall dedicated to the Saviour of the Underworld, the Buddhist deity, Ti-tsang Wang, with a long and comparatively narrow annexe running down the sides of the whole length of the two halls. On the other side of the halls were large rooms dedicated to the ritual services.\n\nThe usual images one would expect in the halls of both the Lord of T'ai Shan and Ti-tsang Wang stand either before or beside the altars, and lining the walls. Many are tamed demons such as Horse Face and Buffalo Head, and the Short Black and Tall White Demons who seize the souls of humans on their due date of death, dragging them before the City God for their primary interrogation. Others include the City God himself and the Goddess of Maternity, Chu-sheng Niang-niang, both of whom occupied their own secondary altars flanking that of Ti-tsang Wang; the Judges of the Ten Courts of the Underworld; and the Civil and Military Secretaries to the Lord of T'ai Shan.\n\nand they have been\n\nHowever, since the refurbishment of the temple, which took some two and a half years, the images down the side annexe which used to stand each in its own shrine have been relocated. The comparatively large image of the local tutelary deity, the Earth God, now has a shrine of his own in the Ti-tsang hall and the other two major images, of the Lord Protector of the Realm, Hu-kuo Tsun-wang Immortal Celestial Physician, Tien-i Chen-jen moved to the Ti-tsang Wang hall where they now sit on the main altar but in front, one on either side of the altar, both newly repainted. These two deities have borne these titles for at least thirty years and during that time the temple staff who appeared to be quite knowledgeable explained that the images down the side wall of the annexe had been brought in from other temples when the latter had been demolished for one reason or another, and their identities had been lost over the years.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213984, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "19\n\n# THE CRAFT OF THE BAMBOO SCAFFOLDER\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nAdmired by Taoists for its resilient beauty, tenacity and flexibility, bamboo symbolises endurance and the lifestyle of an upright, virtuous gentleman. It has rings marking, as it were, important events in a person's life. It is fast-growing and has great powers of survival. Not long after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, on 6 August 1945, bamboo on the devastated site was said to have sprouted new shoots.\n\nBamboo also, with classical, delicate leaves like painting on porcelain, bends but seldom breaks. The tender sprouts are a popular vegetable. With its unbounded usefulness it is employed to make waterpipes, poles for hanging out washing, mats, incense sticks, wide-brimmed hats to offer protection from the sun, shields used by riot police, chopsticks, pillows, divination blocks for temples, carved ornaments and countless other types of utensils. The elderly will have slept in bamboo cradles as children. Their coffins will be conveyed at their funerals by bearers using bamboo carrying poles.\n\nJames Stewart Lockhart, a senior Hong Kong civil servant who played a major part in the taking over of the New Territories by Britain from China at the end of the last century, described bamboo in a large, undated notebook, as follows:2\n\nTo start with, the bamboo has seven virtues of its very own: it is clean and unspotted in itself; a sheaf covers the stem as it pierces the dark earth, so the bamboo has protection from the world; being hollow it is symbolical...of a pure heart; it is strong and unyielding; the stem being divided into segments is orderly; the stalk is pure green without blemish; and is lastly eternal and enduring.\n\n3\n\nAlthough the Victorian naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace,3 described bamboo as one of nature's most valuable gifts, the main purpose of this paper is to look at bamboo as a material for scaffolding, together with the methods of training and the role of the bamboo scaffolder.\n\nA legendary sage named Yau Chao Shi is said to have lived 5,000", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213987, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "22\n\ndisobeyed he would be scolded or beaten. At that time an employee was compelled to register with the only union of scaffolding workers in order to get a job.\n\nSome apprentice scaffolders will tell you they enjoy the view from on high, where they are 'king of all they survey', although others maintain that, unless one has a natural head for heights, at first, being a scaffolder takes a lot of getting used to (Plate 3). Many youngsters are put off from taking up the trade by their parents who see it as a dangerous occupation.\n\nA short evening course entitled, \"The Craft of Chinese Scaffolding\" was run by the Morrison Hill Technical Institute in the early 1970s, when the author served there as Principal. This course was taught by the late Mr Ho So, an experienced bamboo scaffolder and the editor of The Craft of Chinese Scaffolding. Unlike the usual practice of learning on the-job, a certificate was issued on the successful completion of this course.\n\nMr Ho left Kao Yao, Guangdong Province, as a boy of 15 and came to Hong Kong to serve a three-year apprenticeship. He gained considerable experience as a master scaffolder before setting up his own business which he ran for upwards of 30 years. Later, he taught not only at the Morrison Hill Technical Institute, but he also became a full-time scaffolding instructor at the Kowloon Bay Construction Industry Training Authority Centre.\n\nWhen the author visited the premises of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Bamboo Scaffolding Merchants Association, in Spring Garden Lane, Wanchai, in August 1997, the late Mr Ho's photograph was prominently displayed. This was placed alongside pictures of other persons who had made significant contributions to the Association and to the scaffolding industry. An altar and pictures of groups of scaffolders were also displayed in the Association's Headquarters. Opposite, on Spring Garden Lane, on the top floor, are dormitories where a number of elderly scaffolders reside. Earth god shrines are in evidence together with bundles of nylon lashings, for tying bamboo scaffold poles together.\n\nAs at 1995, with a highly fragmented trade which relies largely on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213994, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "29\n\nway while working\n\nMore accidents happen when scaffolding is being dismantled than when being erected. Most trades have their written and unwritten rules and, with bamboo scaffolding, it is generally accepted that, whoever erects a scaffold, then the same scaffolders should also dismantle it. The argument is that the craftsmen who put it up know the peculiarities of the scaffold and they are in the best position to take it down. There have been disputes between main contractors and scaffolding subcontractors resulting in the latter walking off the job. In the end, in most cases, the main contractor had to relent as no-one else was prepared to take the scaffold down.*2\n\nDeities\n\nFor all employers and employees in the building industry, Lu Pan is worshipped as a general deity. His birthday is celebrated on the 13th day of the Sixth Moon. In addition, the patron saint for bamboo scaffolders, performers in opera troupes, goldsmiths and silversmiths, and incense and funeral-paper shop staff, also worship Wah Kwong (Hua Kuang). He is sometimes described as the God of Fire.* As one mature scaffolder proudly told the author, 'We have three sz foo masters [sic].' He included, of course, Yau Chao Shi, who was mentioned at the start of this paper, as well as Lu Pan and Wah Kwong.\n\nThe last is said to have defied the Heavenly Jade Emperor's order to destroy all bamboo opera stages on earth as punishment for an opera performance that had insulted his Majesty. As a result, Wah Kwong gained the undying gratitude of scaffolders. It is important to remember that Wah Kwong is a powerful, cleanshaven god with a third eye in his forehead. He often has a piece of gold in his hand. He is a destroyer of demons and is rarely prayed to by individuals, but, more likely, by groups. There is a temple dedicated to Wah Kwong in Tai O, a small market town and fishing port to the west on Lantau Island. There is also an effigy of Wah Kwong Sz Foo in the Lit Shing Kung (“temple”), adjacent to the Man Mo Temple, in Hollywood Road.*34 Master Wah Kwong's birthday is observed on the 28th day of the Ninth Moon,*35 The author has, however, been told by scaffolders that the birthday of Wah Kwong is on the 18th day of the Ninth Moon. The author has, however, been told by scaffolders that the birthday of Wah Kwong is\n\n75", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214057, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "92\n\nfrom which tunnels were excavated to locations under the floors\n\nA lady, appalled by the primitive standards of hygiene in 1879, wrote \".....no sort of effective drains or sewers have been provided whatever; sewerage finds its way [into rain-water conduits] is simply deposited along the whole harbour front, thus poisoning what else might be a pleasant situation........the arrangements for the daily (or among the poorer classes only bi-weekly!) removal of nuisances from every house (for subsequent conveyance to the mainland as an article of agricultural commerce) form a very unpleasant page in the sanitary statistics........\". Environmental concern clearly was not created in the late 20th century.\n\nMatters were not improved by Governor Hennessy (1877-82)'s deep conviction that for the local inhabitants their traditional earth system of sanitation was preferable to western flushing toilets. Even at the eve of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, the primitive system of collection and disposal of sewage was common, collection being based on an estimate of six taels (227 grammes) per person per day. In view of the above it is not surprising that a report recommended in 1882, amongst other things, that the city should be completely re-drained and a cholera outbreak in the following year gave timely impetus for new main drains and sewers to be laid. Nevertheless it was not until soon after the first serious outbreak of plague in 1894 that the main drainage system in the principal urban area had been practically completed. Legislation was then passed in 1896 making drainage for houses compulsory. Records indicate that the main storm-water drains around the turn of the century were formed with mass gravity retaining walls and incorporated a half-round dry-weather flow channel; where appropriate these drains were covered with simply-supported concrete or granite slabs.\n\nSubsequently more open nullahs were constructed, often running along the centre-lines of road reserves, for instance in Kowloon along Nam Cheong Street (Sham Shui Po) which was completed in 1912 and Waterloo Road (both of these now having been decked, mainly to effect much needed road improvements). As a result of continuing enhancements to the drainage system, in particular those relating to nullah and stream training works, plague was virtually eliminated by 1924 whilst deaths from malaria, although still numerous at the outbreak of the Pacific war, gradually declined.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214058, "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": 126, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "93\n\nRailways\n\nThe first railway to be built was the Peak tramway, a 1.4km-long 1.5m-gauge steam-driven funicular railway rising 370 metres along steep rugged terrain, which was opened in 1888. A contemporary description stated that “A splendid feat of engineering skill has made the Peak accessible to all.” Nevertheless, during the following year, as a result of exceptionally heavy rainfall, the track was breached by a major landslide, a debris flow originating from a fill slope on the Peak. A few years later, in 1904, a conventional electric tram service was implemented along the northern side of the Island between Shau Kei Wan and Kennedy Town. Both of these are still running today. Railway track, with locomotives, trucks, and steam-operated cranes, were widely used around the turn of the century for transporting/handling freight in the dockyards and site construction materials.\n\nIn 1905, the Government took over a part of the concession to build a section of the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR), namely that between Kowloon and the Chinese border. The 34km-long railway, which was completed in 1910, involved construction of five tunnels, 48 bridges (the largest span being 30.53 metres on an irregular skew over-bridge at Hung Hom), 66 culverts, workshops, and stations, drainage channels, and a little roadwork, the creation of a 16ha reclamation in Kowloon (in Tsim Sha Tsui and Hung Hom bays), and many cuttings and end-tipped embankments, including those along the exposed seaward sections between Sha Tin and Tai Po. In all, some 2.6M cubic metres of materials were handled in the earthworks. A contemporary technical discussion indicated that slopes of 1:1 were generally adopted in cuttings on which \"turf grew excellently....... Good results were obtained by plastering bad decomposed rock faces with a mixture of lime, sand, and gritty red earth\". Labour guilds kept the rates of wages relatively high (those for the building trades and for dressed granite even approaching those in England) and regulated the quantity of work to be undertaken by the various classes of workmen.\n\nThe 2.2km-long, 5.2m-wide horseshoe-shaped brick-lined Beacon Hill tunnel, which at the time was longer than any in China itself, was ranked as one of the outstanding engineering achievements of its day. To gain access to the south face, it was necessary to build a temporary 3km-long metre-gauge railway from the nearest jetty at Tai Kok Tsui,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214059, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "94\n\nThe tunnel was driven at a rate of about 18 metres/week through granite - surprisingly the most serious problems encountered appear to have concerned the labour, rather than the tunnelling itself, on account of fung shui difficulties and the prevalence of malaria.\n\nTo finalise the KCR project, an 11.5km-long narrow-gauge (600mm) branch line was constructed in 1911-1912 from Fan Ling to Sha Tau Kok on the border, mainly using track and plant which had been utilized in connection with the building of the Beacon Hill Tunnel, and operated until 1928. The civil engineering work was relatively simple, the deepest cutting and embankments being about 5 metres. For most of the route the railway shared bridges with the adjacent road but beyond Wo Hang some six bridges and numerous culverts needed to be built.\n\nWater Supply\n\nThe original inhabitants and new settlers in 1841 obtained their water supply from hillside streams. To augment these sources the first five wells for the city water supply were sunk in 1851. In 1859, the Government realised that the old haphazard supply system was totally inadequate and, following a prize competition for the best plan, implemented a small reservoir scheme in the Pok Fu Lam valley, the dam being little more than a stream intake, from which water was conveyed in 1863 through a 250mm cast-iron pipe to tanks above the city of Victoria.\n\nFrom that time the history of Hong Kong's waterworks was a continual struggle to catch up with the needs of an ever-increasing population and virtually never succeeded until recent years (when the Territory's water shortfall was imported from China). The original Pok Fu Lam scheme was soon scrapped and a new reservoir, with its 11m-high earth dam and a much greater capacity (300 million litres), was completed further upstream in 1871 when the population had risen to about 125,000. The reconstruction of the supply conduit, by means of a brick culvert along the 150m contour (Pok Fu Lam and Conduit Roads), became operational in 1877.\n\nThe first stage of the Tai Tam scheme, the principal feature being a 40m-high masonry-faced rubble concrete dam, was completed in 1889", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214061, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "96\n\nThe Shing Mun Valley scheme was started in 1923 and initially a 2km-long 3m-diameter tunnel was driven to Shek Lai Pui. Subsequently, the largest pre-Pacific war reservoir was constructed, which was to double the Territory's total water storage capacity to 27,000 million litres; it was formed by the main Gorge Dam, which was the highest in the old British Empire at that time (1936), and the subsidiary 25m-high earth/rockfill/concrete core Pineapple Pass Dam. The remarkable Gorge Dam, 85m high with a bold and probably unique design, consists of a downstream shoulder of rockfill faced with pitching and an upstream face comprising a slender near-vertical reinforced concrete diaphragm wall supported by a massive concrete thrust block. Between the upper part of the thrust block and the downstream rockfill, there is a narrow wedge filled with sand for the purpose of taking up any settlement of the rockfill and to cater for possible earthquake movement. Any leakage through the upper part of the diaphragm can be observed from an inspection gallery behind it. Elaborate experiments were made to determine the correct design of the reservoir overflow bellmouth in order to reduce vortexing and to neutralise the destructive vacuum forces which could occur at the base of the bellmouth overflow shaft. For this investigative work, the young Geoffrey Binnie was awarded a Telford premium by the Institution of Civil Engineers. Subsequently, preliminary investigations for the Tai Lam Chung scheme were started shortly before the outbreak of the Pacific war, by which time the Territory's population had risen to about 1.6 million.\n\nAs a result of an acute water emergency on the Island, work started on a 300mm steel pipe cross-harbour main in 1929, the sixty-two 30m-long bolted sections taking less than 2 months to lay, and a further 450mm main was laid in 1935. Due to corrosion problems, it was necessary to replace these pipes in 1939 with two 530mm steel pipes, protected with a 12mm-thick cement lining on the inside and a 60mm coating of vibrated concrete on the outside, which were laid on reinforced concrete blocks bedded on rockfill with a protective rubble mound on the east side of the pipelines to prevent damage from dragging anchors.\n\nThese pre-Pacific war water schemes not only involved building dams but also needed construction, often in difficult site conditions, of a multiplicity of extensive catchwaters, tunnels, trunk mains, treatment plants, service reservoirs, pumping stations, and distribution mains in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214186, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "beach with his Chinese cook carrying a wok (Chinese frying pan) under his arm, he proclaimed 'Mat ye lei ga? (†1) (meaning \"What is this?'). But to a Cantonese it sounds very much like the word 'America'.\n\nAgain, regarding the appreciation of someone else's humour, a Chinese who has never lived outside China may be unable to laugh at a joke because he has limited knowledge outside his own country. For instance the ideal world has jokingly been said, by Asians, to be an English stately home, Chinese food, an American salary and a Japanese wife. But then another Asian pipes up, \"If you had a Japanese house, English food, a Chinese salary and an American wife you'd be in real trouble!\"\n\nOf course general knowledge, background and nuances often play an important part. For instance if you say in English, 'She's no chicken,' you mean a woman is not young. But in Cantonese it means she is not a prostitute.\n\nChinese and Westerners may face various obstacles before they can laugh at each other's jokes. Nevertheless, as Ezra Pound (1885-1972) the American poet and translator wrote: The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension. Although there is much fine Chinese literature there have been few Chinese Nobel Prize winners. It is unfortunate that many of the finest passages of Chinese writing lose their sparkle when translated into western languages (Ball 1903; 358).\n\nIn a similar way the English language is not always easy for foreigners to appreciate. Tsim Tak-lung, at one time in charge of the Hong Kong Chinese University Press, once said that when enquiring after someone the English reply, ‘As well as can be expected.' 'What on earth does it mean?' asked confused Tsim.\n\nAgain he tells the tale of when he asked someone in a railway carriage in England whether a certain train went to Blanktown. He expected a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Instead he received the reply: 'I should be very surprised if it doesn't!' When the train pulled up at the platform", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214189, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "10\n\ncannot, usually, stand the smell of cheese, be able to understand the complex English? But you can argue, too, how can the British, who cannot enjoy a succulent chicken's foot for breakfast, understand the Chinese? The latter believe you need to 'eat the part to nourish the part' (DE). By eating chicken's feet, for example, you can walk faster.\n\n4\n\nOf course there are people like Lucy Sheen, a Chinese who was brought up in Britain, who played Portia in Julius Caesar at Bristol Old Vic (Rosser, 1990;8). But she still had to overcome racial stereotyping. She recounts how, to use her own words, ... the Dickhead of a critic said, about her acting, 'It doesn't matter if one can speak the language. If one's not White forget it.' Lucy also recalls how she was taken home to meet her new Chinese boyfriend's parents. They were really chuffed that at last their son had met a nice, real Chinese girl. All went well until she opened her mouth!\n\nOf course, even within Britain itself there are traditional regional differences. There are ‘cockneyisms' with rhyming slang; where 'apples and pears' means 'stairs' and 'tit for tat' stands for 'hat.' This contrasts with the humour of those who believe they belong to the 'posh' set, although the latter is not usually racist and a person is readily accepted if they have personality. You also have the realistic, often macabre humour of the Scots and the Irish, the down-to-earth humour of the English North Countryman, and the japes, recounted time and again, in the slow drawl of rural folk.\n\nUnless you have lived in a country for some considerable time many jokes may be obscure to a foreigner, even if he or she is fluent in the language. A knowledge of local affairs is often important. A man who was once asked why he did not weep at a sermon when everyone else was shedding tears replied: 'I don't belong to this parish' (Bergson, 1956;64). Similarly, the author recalls seeing a show in New York when he failed to appreciate many of the jokes. American humour often centres around family conflict (like American soap operas), bar-room buddy banter, practical jokes, bragging and tall stories although the French claim that practical jokes and tall stories are important aspects of their humour as well (Zeldin, 1983:74). In turn the Danish sense of humour, which is often sarcastic, can shock the average Frenchman. Similarly, Dutch humour can be abrasive, cynical and, on occasions, teasing and aggressive.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214192, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "13\n\nvariety of humour and just talking mo lei tau (nonsense, f). It all adds up to people coming out of a show and feeling good about themselves.\n\nChinese humour\n\nWhereas Westerners have been described as being seriously humorous, Chinese have been said to be 'humorously serious' (Kao, 1946; XVIII). Chinese humour is, by and large, down to earth, with a surfeit of action, with the hero's mother breaking a leg or the bully being beaten up. Much of it may, nevertheless, be, so called, mo lei tau, and include a certain amount of Western style slapstick.\n\nIt was not until the beginning of the 20th century (unlike the West where they became popular two or three centuries earlier) that cartoons became popular in China (Xu, 1989; preface). The reason was largely because China was a semi-feudal society and people did not have freedom to create works of humour and sarcasm. Today, under socialism, works considered 'in poor taste' are often still not accepted for publication. Often cartoons tend to be used as resistance to oppression and, like a dagger or javelin, aimed to do 'battle.' Having said all that, however, many Westerners (as well as many Hong Kong Chinese) believe humour in China is not subtle enough and it does not demand rapid thought. In the main it is straightforward, then there is a pause followed by the punchline.\n\n'Laugh talk' (slapstick), as it is sometimes dubbed, generally goes down well with Chinese, and, between the two World Wars, it is understood that on the first night of a show put on by the family of Sir Run Run Shaw, in Shanghai, an actor, purely by accident, fell through the floorboards. Because this was considered hilarious by the audience, the Shaw showbiz family made it a permanent part of the act.\n\nThe author recalls when he visited Hainan Island, in China in 1987, in an off-the-beaten-track village, a Chinese infant was placed on his shoulder. The child wore standard Chinese shorts, with a longish vertical split in the seat. This conveniently opened automatically when it squatted to do its business. As it sat on the author's shoulder its bare bottom rubbed against his face. What a joke! All the Chinese, espe-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214215, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "36\n\nis down-to-earth. Someone breaks a leg. In the end the bully is beaten up, and so on.\n\n(6) There is, nevertheless, considerable common ground between Chinese and western humour with 'international jokes', both verbal and non-verbal, such as those acted out by an artiste like Mr Bean. His jokes cross frontiers easily. Hong Kong's martial art's expert, Jackie Chan, also includes slapstick in his acting. For much of the time Chinese and Westerners can and do laugh at the same jokes.\n\n(7) Humour can be lowbrow or highbrow, the latter delivering a message or a moral lesson regarding, say, the 'evils' of pomposity or politics.\n\n(8) Ribald, bawdy and scatologic jokes have been common throughout the ages, and still are today, both among Chinese and Westerners.\n\n(9) In Chinese society there are taboo subjects, such as jokes about mothers-in-law and death.\n\n(10) Making fun of various sub-ethnic groups, the under-privileged and the handicapped, like cripples and eunuchs, is more and more considered in poor taste.\n\n(11) Chinese is a rich language, especially the Cantonese dialect with its marked tonal differences. This lends itself to punning and the clever use of ambiguity.\n\n(12) There is a wealth of humour in Chinese literature, everyday expressions and conversation.\n\n(13) The pointed barb, directly confronting a Chinese, is less common than among Westerners, largely because it can result in a loss of face.\n\n(14) Not only is a constant diet of humour good for both Westerners and Chinese, but the laugh or giggle can help relieve stress or tension just as it can bolster soldiers in battle.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214243, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "64\n\nMaritchi [or Marici Deva], [a Sanskrit term for the Indian mythological form of Parbati, the wife of Siva]; and Ma-yeh, the mother of Sakyamuni, The Buddha, the whole being confused by devotees who tend to describe them all as Chun-t'i, with the legends of Maritchi and Cundi producing an inextricably involved and perplexing picture.\n\nImages of Marici are present in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu and in both temples he, rather than she, is portrayed as a standing Buddhist deity with eight arms and with three faces. The face facing forward is of a benign human with hooded eyes commonly seen on Tibetan images. He has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. The other two are faces of a pig and of a human. He is dressed in colourful robes and a five-leaf Buddhist crown, and is barefoot.\n\nThe association between Chun-t'i and Kuan Yin goes back to the original relationship in Buddhism of Chun-t’i with the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara who promised to save mankind and bring them to deliverance before they, the two bodhisattvas, Chun-t'i and Avalokitesvara themselves entered Nirvana. Marici has the face and eight arms of Chun-t'i, and is one of the six manifestations of Avalokitesvara who is concerned especially with humans, rather than the deities and demons. Chun-t'i in the form of Avalokitesvara is a male deity, though Tantric sects, giving her an entirely different role left her feminine.\n\nLegends about Chun-t'i usually include stories of her valour in battle. According to the Ming novel The Deification of the Gods [Feng-shen Yen-i], from which many of the beliefs of folk religion devotees have evolved, Chun-t’i was summoned to Heaven during the legendary period of Chinese history when the heroes and Immortals were emerged, in order to acquire the necessary skills to take on K'ung Hsüan, one of the contestants for the dynastic throne. This was because she had attained the required degree of perfection on Earth. She found herself whisked aloft in a rainbow, and having acquired the skills necessary she reappeared in a cloud of fire with twenty-four heads and eighteen arms and, throwing a silken cord around her adversary's throat, she turned K'ung Hsüan into a one-eyed peacock on which she rode off to the Western Heavens.\n\nImages of Chun-t'i show her with four or nine pairs of arms, each", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214245, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "66\n\nIn Malaysia where a number of Tamils also pray in certain Chinese folk religion temples, they refer to Tou-mu on her tortoise and pigs as the sister of the deity Maritci.\n\n5] Pancika known in Chinese as Pan-chih-chia\n\nPancika is the third of the Eight Great Yakshas, one of the Eight Generals of Vaisravana, husband of Hariti. An image of Pancika is present in both the Pi-yun Ssu and the Ta Pei Ssu. His image in the latter depicts him as a semi-demon, with dark skin, large round eyes and a narrow coronet with a sunburst facing forward. He is dressed in colourful robes over armour and has the swirling scarf round the back of his head, draped over his arms. He is making a 'v' sign horizontally with his right hand pointing to his left, using his fore- and middle-fingers. He has no other unique characteristic. In the Pi-yun Ssu, however, he could easily be taken for Wei T'o but without Wei T'o's diamond sword. His hands are grasped together before his chest; otherwise, he is much the same as in the Ta Pei Ssu.\n\n6] Hariti known in Chinese as Kuei-tzu Mu The Mother of Demons\n\nHariti is also known as the Mother of Loving Children, the children sometimes being known as the malevolent Yaksha [Yeh-sha]. She was the mother of one thousand demons, half of them living in Heaven and the rest on Earth. She is one of the standard group of Twenty Devas [Erh-shih T'ien] though she, too, is regarded by some as a Yaksha.\n\nOriginally her diet had consisted solely of human children and only after Sakyamuni, the Buddha, snatched one of her five hundred children and hid it, causing her great anguish, did she come to realise the suffering she was causing to humans by her diet. She became a vegetarian and a devout Buddhist. She eventually became a Buddhist deity whose images were to be seen in a few temples in northern China, in Shansi in particular, portraying her as a tall, slim beautiful woman whilst beside her stood one or more tiny demonic creatures, some of her offspring.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214247, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "68\n\nSarasvati is the sister of Yama and wife of Brahma and Manjusri [depending on the legend], and sometimes assumes the form of a swan or peacock. Chinese texts however, describe her as male. She is portrayed in India as having two arms and a lute or with four or eight arms.\n\n9] Laksmi known in Chinese as Chi-hsiang T'ien-nü or 落吃澀弭. She is the Hindu goddess of beauty, pleasure and wealth, that is, fortune, and of good auspices. She was the wife of Vishnu in several of his incarnations, including that of Vishnu's incarnation as Rama when she was known as Sita. In some cults she is also one of the personifications of Sri Devi, as is Prthivi [see 10 below]. She is usually depicted with two arms though in some places she has four.\n\nThe active power of creative energy portrayed by female deities has been personified as the goddess Sri Devi. She has manifested herself in many different forms including male and non-human. She has a number of names one of which is Laksmi.\n\nAn image of Laksmi is present in both the Pi-yun Ssu and the Ta Pei Ssu. In both temples she is standing dressed in highly colourful, decorated robes and crown, with no unique characteristics.\n\n10] Prthivi known in Chinese as Chien-lao-ti-shen or 提毗. He is the Earth-devi, the god of the soil, ground, etc. and also one of the four with thunderbolts in the Vajradhati group. In some cults in India Prthivi is known as Bhu Devi, one of the personifications of Sri Devi.\n\nImages of Prthivi are present in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu. In the Ta Pei Ssu his image portrays him as a typical northern Chinese image of a youthful minister. He is remarkably feminine in his facial features, and is dressed in a colourful highly decorated robe and crown without any unique characteristics. He is much the same in the Pi-yun Ssu though here he is carrying a small symbolic club between\n\nPage 105\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214255, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "76\n\nfact that he is listed in Soothill as one of the Twenty Deva. His image is to be seen in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu. In both temples he is depicted as a ferocious guardian general with a wide gaping mouth, large round eyes and a highly decorated Buddhist crown. He holds the standard weapon, the vajra, the diamond sword, resting in his left hand and against his left shoulder, and has the swirling scarf behind his head. He is stripped to the waist, has bare legs beneath a highly colourful decorated skirt, and sandals. A mural in the Sakyamuni Pagoda in Ying county in Shansi province depicts Guhyapati in much the same form.\n\nThe Chin-kang as a group are minor deities, guardians belonging to the class of Lokapalas borrowed by Buddhism from Brahmanism. The standard four Chin-kang, the Diamond Kings, are each the ruler of the four continents surrounding Mount Sumeru and though Guhyapati Raja is a Chin-kang he is not one of the usual four. The standard four are the Ssu Ta T'ien-wang [see 23-26 below].\n\n23-26] Ssu Ta T'ien-wang XX The Four Great Celestial Kings\n\nThe Four Deva Kings, known also as the Four Diamond Kings, Ssu Ta Chin-kang X, are the four guardians whose images stand, usually portrayed much larger than life-size, just inside temple entrance doorways, in pairs, two to either side.\n\nWerner points out that these are not gods but guardians, Buddhist protectors who should be thought of as minor divinities. Chinese Buddhists adopted four Hindu Brahmin deities from Indian Buddhism, the Lokapala, the guardians of the four sides of the fabulous Mount Meru [the Guardians of the Four Corners of the World] who, in turn, were later adopted by the Taoists from the Chinese Buddhists. The Four were probably first introduced into China during the T'ang dynasty [6th and 7th centuries AD] and still today are regarded as the grim-faced temple guardian generals, enormous statues in T’ang armour, tamed demons who were redeemed and who now symbolise the seasons and control the elements of fire, water, earth and air. Although the majority of images of the Four stand up to and even over fifteen feet high they can also be as tiny as eighteen inches high. They used to be deities in their own right and offered worship, reverence and offerings. Nowadays however although most devotees solemnly place one smoulder-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214263, "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": 121, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "84\n\nShan is one of the five sacred mountains of China and is located in Shantung. It is believed to be inhabited by many divinities both male and female with T'ai-shan Yeh the primary deity for most pilgrims to the mountain even though the main deity in the temple on the peak is the Jade Emperor. Temples dedicated to the Lord of T'ai-shan were to be found in all parts of China, where he was regarded as the guardian of life and death.\n\nAs the Supreme Lord of the Underworld he has a very large bureaucratic organisation responsible to him for the maintenance of the Book of Life, the register of the due date on which the soul of every living soul must be summoned to appear before the Judges of the Underworld. Popular belief claimed that the entrance to the Underworld was to be found in one of the temples at the base of the mountain. The arrest and escort of souls is carried out by lictors and runners from the yamen of the local City Gods who drag each soul before the local City God, together with the biography and report on the soul prepared by the local Earth God [T'u-ti] who has carried out the first, very preliminary interview to ensure that the right soul has been arrested and is ready for onward despatch. Again, after verification of the identity of the soul the City God endorses the Earth God's report and if available adds any further information on the soul he might possess, and sends the soul under escort to the First Court of the Underworld where the process of purging the soul of all sin commences. After the soul has passed through all Ten Courts and been fully purged of its sins, it is then despatched either to the Western Heaven [Celestial Paradise] or for rebirth in an incarnation to be decided upon depending upon the weight of sins incurred during the previous incarnation.\n\nIn parts of China and in Taiwan, the alter ego is Tung-yüeh Ta-ti with Yen-lo Wang being the senior and chief of the Ten Judges who are under his charge. This dual role played by both Tung-yüeh Ta-ti and Yen-lo Wang is a further complication and a confusion which appears to be insoluble. The former is not only the Supreme deity of the Underworld but also the Judge of the Seventh Court whilst Yen-lo Wang is not only the senior Judge in charge of all Courts but also the Judge of the Fifth Court. The latter has been explained as Yen-lo Wang having ten different forms, as Judges in each of the Ten Courts. This, however, would mean that T'ai-shan Yeh of the Seventh Court would also be a form of Yen-lo Wang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214265, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "86\n\npray to him for the blessing of a son. However, in Cholon [Saigon] his image, seen in several temples are known as Tzu-wei Ta-ti but identified as T'ai-sui, the god of the planet Jupiter and of Time, though in the major Jade Emperor temple in Cholon images of both T'ai Sui with his bell and Tzu-wei astride his lion stand side by side.\n\nHis standard image in Cantonese communities portrays him as a clean-shaven youth with large round protruding eyes, astride or sitting side-saddle on a reclining mythical beast, possibly a stylised lion. He is holding a seal aloft in his right hand, a talisman bearing the inscription \"The Star looks Straight On\" R. He also has a unique feature, a flag pole behind him on to which is fixed a sheathed sword. The youth holds a conch shell in his left hand and is dressed in only trousers and a cape which hangs round his neck and down his back. He is wearing shoes and has neck-length hair which is held in place by a tiara from which two objects, like insects' feelers, protrude upwards.\n\nIn yet another tale, an extraordinary and complicated legend, an emperor had eighteen robes specially embroidered for the Eighteen Lohan. These were being delivered by a trusted minister who reached their palace in the Western Heavens only to find seventeen Lohan. He sought the eighteenth and found him dead in the kitchen crawling with big fat lice. As this Lohan was the god of the star Tzu-wei and this star represented the emperor of China, the minister knew immediately that the emperor had died since his departure and the spirit of the dead Lohan had been incarnated as the new emperor. The minister was puzzled - what he should do? Finally, he placed the cape around the body of the dead Lohan and returned to Earth bearing a box from the other Lohan which would, they assured him, prove that he had accomplished his mission. When, after months of travel, he reached home, the new emperor opened the box and out flew a crane up into the sky and back to the stars. Artists customarily depict this in their portrait of Tzu-wei.\n\n39] Lei Shen The Spirit of Thunder\n\nLei Shen is portrayed and named as such in only one of the two temples, the Pi-yun Ssu. The problem is that Lei Shen, as such, has been noted on remarkably few altars. Lei Kung, the God of Thunder is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214294, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "deacon Gray35 finds shops in Canton still producing bows and arrows in the late 1860s showing that they continued to be used. This retention of the bow was probably also due to a feeling that it was a gentleman's weapon and more honourable to use. Indeed, proficiency with the bow was one of the attributes required of a military mandarin.\n\nWhilst such weapons as the matchlock and bow could be effective, they did not generally cause many casualties. This may have been due to lack of deliberate aim, although none of the projectile weapons, either side, were very accurate. The tactic used by the Europeans to overcome this was the use of volley firing. Then, even with the inherent inaccuracy, there was a fair chance that enough bullets would find their mark. Of course steady troops that could reload and fire almost continuous volleys, and only charge when ordered, were a necessary part of the tactic. As mentioned in the introduction, it is this training and disciplined use of troops, that the Chinese forces seemed to have neglected.\n\nThe cut and thrust weapons were also varied and covered a wide range of spears, pole arms and swords. As might be expected, when it came to hand to hand fighting these were the equal to the bayonet, although again the training and discipline of the European troops would have been an advantage.\n\nFinally the Chinese had a number of arms that almost defy classification. These were used in defending forts against storming parties. There was a form of grenade, made of clay filled with combustible material, and a similar weapon that relied more on its bad smell than its explosive power.* And Lt. Colonel Fisher reports that at one fort they found: \"Their construction was as follows:- A pit was dug in the ground, and in it was placed large iron shells loaded with powder; a match communicated between the shell and a flint-gun lock, which it was intended to fire, by a string attached to the trigger, and crossing the pit-fall. Over the whole, was laid a mat lightly strewed with earth. The modus operandi was, that on entering the fort, we should run over the mat, which would let us down; falling on the string, we should pull the trigger, and be blown up.\"38 It appears that the land mine has to be added to the list of ancient Chinese inventions, even if it is not one to be proud of.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214302, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "124\n\nschool in Chefoo in Shantung province before returning to England where he attended the Bath Art and Technical School. There he studied art before switching to Bristol University to read for a BSc in science. He would appear to have given up his higher education following the shattering of his romantic aspirations when he ran away to sea and worked his passage to Canada. He toiled for a while in Canada before returning to his parents in Taiyuan in 1905 with vague plans to hunt and explore the wild and barren areas of north China; he was twenty at the time. In practice he took up a teaching appointment at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin and only during the vacations was he able to hunt and seek specimens for the natural history museum he was establishing at the college. From the vague evidence available he would appear to have remained at the school for only a matter of a year as he was invited at the end of the final term to join the Duke of Bedford's expedition to collect zoological specimens in Shensi province for the British Museum. Shensi is the neighbouring province to Shansi and lies to its west.\n\nThe Duke of Bedford's expedition travelled through Sowerby's home province of Shansi where they lived for a week or so in one of the typical village cave houses of the Yellow Earth country, in a village some fifty miles west of Taiyuan. From there they continued west, across the Yellow River to Yenan in Shensi and on into the Ordos desert. Their return route took them north to the Great Wall, which they then followed to the east before turning south to Taiyuan down the main route through Shansi. The whole expedition took some five months and Arthur Sowerby would have been just twenty-one. It was during this expedition that Sowerby discovered a new species of jerboa [kangaroo rat] which was sent back to the British Museum and subsequently named after him, Dipus sagitta sowerbyi.\n\nComing from a missionary family he would have had little or no financial support from his father and would have needed to work for a living. He was sponsored for a number of years by a wealthy American, Robert Sterling Clark, who remained a friend for most of Sowerby's life, and although it is no more than supposition he may well have continued teaching at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin especially in view of his marriage in that city in 1910, at the age of twenty-six. The long vacations would have been an advantage enabling him to gather the material he later used in the China Journal, especially his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214318, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "140\n\nborne to Earth by the Celestial Immortal Tian Fei, to his apotheosis when he was about to be borne off to Heaven; he is portrayed in one scene preparing medicinal drinks and in another overcoming the flood dragon.\n\nA popular legend related in Jiangxi about Xu describes how he destroyed a monstrous snake which had been terrorising the areas of western Jiangxi. Another describes how in Changsha in neighbouring Hunan province he killed a dragon which had transformed itself into a woman and had married a local mandarin.\n\nXu Sun, according to Fitkin, had been a good and sympathetic magistrate and as such was regarded as a protective deity throughout Jiangxi province as well as among Jiangxi people wherever they went. According to folk memory he never took 'squeeze' nor would he tolerate corruption. He also threw the flood dragon down a well telling him as he did so that he might come forth when the iron tree blossomed. This well was in the huge Wan Shou Gong, a temple in the centre of Nanchang and though the temple was burned down in about 1916, it was [in 1922] being rebuilt at a huge cost and, as far as can be ascertained, no longer exists. Folklore claims that plague and flood, as well as brigandage would come to Jiangxi if there were no Wan Shou Gong in which to offer up worship and reverence.\n\nAccording to Bai Youchan [the Daoist Thunder Ritual master of the Mao Shan cult - ca. 1200 AD] Xu was venerated initially because, using water-charms, he had cured multitudes who were suffering from a virulent epidemic. Imperial patronage of the cult ensued in the 12th century AD. All his temples used to be called Wan Shou Gong as indeed his cult centre temple at Xi Shan still is.\n\nAnother legend, possibly a variant on the water-charms story, and related in neighbouring Anhui, claimed that Xu had been an important tea merchant. Tea brewed from his leaves not only quenched the thirst but also cured sickness and even prevented people from becoming sick. He was widely renowned for his generosity giving away his tea to the poor in the Spring for people to infuse and drink to ward off sickness. He was deified for such benevolence by order of the emperor.\n\nIn 1920 Nanchang was claimed to be unique in that it had never", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214320, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "142\n\nand Zheng Lingguan Yuanshuai EA\n\nXu Sun's festival is celebrated on the 1st of the eighth lunar month, though in a few of the temples a further minor festival is held on the 28th of the first lunar month.\n\nApart from his title, Xu Zhenjun and his personal name, Xu Sun, he is also known as:\n\nXu Xianzhen 許仙真\n\nXu Xian Zhenren 許仙真人\n\nXu Zhenren 許真人\n\nShengong Miaoji Zhenjun 神功妙濟真君\n\na Song dynasty title\n\nJingming Zhongxiao Dao 凈明忠孝道\n\na Song or Yuan dynasty title\n\nNote: This deity should not be confused with another, Xu Jia, also known as Xu Zhenren A nor should either cult be confused with yet another local deity, Xu Tianjun. A further complication arises from the identification by some temple keepers in Singapore and Taiwan of Xu as the local Chaozhou community Military Earth God, Gantian Dadi.\n\ni Chinese Medical Deities: 1870\n\nii Sun Simiao, one of the Ten Celebrated Physicians renowned not only as a herbalist but as a diagnostician was also of Jiangxi province.\n\niii Wu Ben, a herbalist of great renown born in a village near Xiamen in Fujian province. He is possibly better known by his title of Baosheng Dadi, the Great Emperor who Protects Life.\n\niv Fitkin, Gretchen Mae: The Great River - The Story of a Voyage on the Yangtze Kiang: Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh: 1922\n\nv Professor Liang is Head of the Department of History at the Jiangxi Normal University in Nanchang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214332, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "154\n\nMany of the illustrations tended now to concentrate on showing the human side of the Chinese, and the related narratives discuss their subjects in terms which would have been particularly welcome to the British reader, who would for example have approved the love of animals spoken of in relation to the illustration, \"Peking Cab.\" \"It is astonishing how the Chinese manage their animals by kindness. Refractory mules which could not be persuaded to go into the shafts by threats from Indians are as obedient as dogs at a word from a Chinese carter, a stranger to them. The Pekinites are very fond of horses.\n\n>> 31\n\nThere is further evidence of rapprochement in the fact that there is now a degree of westernisation in the delineation of Chinese features, particularly in \"A Group of Chinese.\"52\n\nAs a whole, the illustrations and related narratives now seek to create a sense of fellow-feeling, and to win a recognition by the British Public that the Chinese people as a whole are fellow-dwellers on Planet Earth. The description of Chinese boys on the ice is a good example of this. \"The Peiho ... is frozen over, and the ponds from Pekin to Taku are solid blocks of ice, on which numerous boys disport themselves much in the same way that small boys do in other parts of the world. There is, however, one dodge I never saw before. A kind of skates, made of Indian corn stalks, are placed, not fixed, under the feet, and the boys, grasping poles, shove themselves along at a glorious pace. Of course, now and then they meet with a fall but up they get again, laughing heartily at their little accidents, and begin life afresh. Nothing can be more glorious than this steady frost, with the cloudless, clear skies, the sun shining all day, the moon all night, making the ice sparkle like diamonds, and producing a most exhilarating effect in the human frame.\"53\n\nComparatively few of the illustrations, now, return to the topics of domination, retribution and punishment. Those there are may be represented by a spirited portrait of Lord Elgin on horseback,54 and by illustrations entitled, \"Weighing the Compensation Money Exacted from the Chinese for the Released British Prisoners and for the Families of those who were Murdered,\" \"Arrival at Tien-Tsin of a portion of the Chinese Indemnity Money, Escorted by Chinese Troops,\"55 and \"French Spoils From China Recently Exhibited at the Palace of the Tuileries.\"57 In keeping with this, the focus here returns briefly to those who had suffered at Chinese hands. The Editor glances at the financial generos-\n\n56", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214366, "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "190\n\nfor\n\nmany years. Although the government had turned a blind eye to such activities in the past, mainly in the name of making tourist dollars, it now focused attention on these 'superstitious rituals' which were said to be daily corroding the ideology of the people. The magazine, saying that market forces had prompted a resurgence of 'backward' religious practices, described how the system of traditional beliefs which had been finding fertile ground in the countryside was now creeping towards urban centres. This would seem neither to have inhibited nor prevented Taiwanese pilgrims flying into mainland China bearing Taiwanese images of deities to their particular cult centres in Fukien and Chekiang provinces for their 'power' [ling] to be renewed. It has to be remembered, however, that Taiwanese visitors are treated as privileged guests.\n\nProblems of luck and fate are as real today in China as they are in any rural society, and as they were in pre-communist China. Some private firms are reported maintaining altars on company premises and are making offerings to the traditional God of Wealth in the belief that this would help ensure their success in business. Buddhist statues have been placed in cultural centres and tutelary deities adorn the roofs of schools. Children too seem to have succumbed to the craze. A survey of 1,622 children between 11 and 12 in Changchun showed 50 per cent believed in fate and 40 per cent believed in the immortality of the soul. A further 40 per cent of boys and nearly 60 per cent of girls believed in spirits and in Heaven and Hell. It went on to describe the resurgence of superstitious practices and the appearance of several 'reactionary sects.' The September 1996 issue of Democracy and Legal System magazine said that tens of thousands of temples dedicated to China's colourful assembly of gods were being illegally built or restored. It quoted 20,1692 in Fukien province, 9,000 in Honan and 10,000 in Shansi provinces had been destroyed, and even 597 state-run restaurants in Peking had taken down and removed Buddhist shrines during one month alone. A further report described a similar crackdown in Hupei province where 1,600 'pagan' shrines, mostly dedicated to the Earth God, had been destroyed as part of the nation-wide crackdown. Similar action had been taken in Kueichou province where nine illegal temples had been closed in one month. A report about Chekiang province about the same time claimed that provincial officials had brought under control 17,900 Taoist, Buddhist or Christian [sic] temples and monasteries.\n\nThe mainland newspaper, Paok'an Wenchai, had about this same time criticised the widespread superstitious practices in the building", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214368, "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": 226, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "192\n\nfunded for the temple.\n\nA logical progression, though always thought impossible in Mainland China, has been the deification of the late Chairman Mao. In Taiwan we have seen images of Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen on altars, revered as are the scores of historical worthies and heroes, but the thought that one day an image of Mao Tse-tung would grace the altar of a Chinese temple was so far fetched as to be ludicrous. None the less, Reuters printed a picture of a peasant in a rural temple in northern Shansi in early 1996 standing before a life-size image of Mao on the altar. Another sighting, of the small white bust of Mao on a household altar in a village on the banks of a river in the upper reaches of Yünnan province during the summer of 1997, was easily explained. The altar bore no other images and it was through this village and across the village's bridge, during the Long March, that the Chinese Red Army passed leaving behind a strong folk memory.\n\nMao, it must be remembered, was revered as a god in his lifetime, with cadres and Red Guards bowing before his image during the Cultural Revolution, and reporting the day's activities. And it has not been uncommon for taxi drivers in some of the major cities during the late 1980s and early 1990s to carry pictures of Mao suspended from their rear-view mirror as a protective amulet, though this has been more of a gimmick, but the idea of a statue of Mao on the altar in present day China is still astounding.\n\nWhat is less strange, perhaps, is the description of a Mao image being carried at the head of a religious procession in Fukien province, providing \"legality\" for this ritual procession of deities. Posters portraying the main Central political leaders were also borne aloft at the head of the procession.3\n\nNo doubt there have been zealous cadres carrying out the anti-feudal, iconoclastic purges following the party line and, recalling the clue provided in the report on Hupei, it would seem more than likely that the large number of illegal temples and shrines destroyed are in fact the small rural shrines dedicated to the Earth God which farmers have in their fields. By and large, it has been quite obvious that in general people will continue to go to temples to offer prayers and incense, and that temples and the deities will thrive, or possibly simply survive.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214417, "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": 275, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "241\n\nthe freshness, the cleanness, the splendour constrain them; they seem like fish which, from a dirty, marshy river have been transferred to an ornamental pond filled with clear water: nowhere to hide, to shelter, to filch, to swindle, to get oneself dirty or to get one's neighbour dirty.\n\nHaving quickly walked round the whole quarter, we struck the mountain, which at this point was artificially cut away and consisted of a smooth, sheer wall; a new road was planned here. A whole regiment of labourers crowded around; they dug the earth, hewed stones, carted debris away. These were all immigrants from the Portuguese colony of Macau. No sooner had the English conceived the idea of a settlement here, and sent out a call, than Macau became almost deserted. Work, and consequently bread and money, lured up to thirty thousand Chinese over here. Instead of poverty in Macau, they preferred the endless labour and inexhaustible payment here. They were not frightened off by the epidemic fevers that raged in the beginning. Under the supervision of the English they began clearing and draining the soil: the epidemics abated and the migration increased.\n\nWe came down from the rise and entered the Chinese quarter again, passing, incidentally, a house where a bare-chested young Chinese stood in front of a window, strumming a meagre and monotonous tune on an instrument resembling a guitar. A number of women peered out of the window. However not all Chinese wander around the town near naked: it is only porters, manual labourers and shopmen. The higher classes are dressed decently; there are even dandies, in snow-white coats and wide satin trousers, in heavy-soled shoes and with a thick black shiny pigtail down to their feet, with a fine fan with which they cover their heads from the sun.\n\nThe more ordinary women walk around the town themselves whereas those who are richer or more important are led arm-in-arm. Their feet are all more or less maimed; and those who \"through ill-breeding, through parental negligence\" remained as nature had intended, fabricate another artificial foot under their real one, but one so small that they definitely cannot step on it and hence walk with the assistance of servant girls. In spite of the long garments in which Chinese women are wrapped from top to toe; I accidentally, with the aid of a puff of wind, discovered a bit of guile... Olive-skinned women with black, slightly narrowed eyes dress predominantly in dark colours. With hair-dos à la chinoise, and a splendid mass of black hair fastened at the back with a large gold or silver pin, they are not dis-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214425, "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": 283, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "between 1935 and 1937 consisting of three 9.2 inch?\n\n249\n\nAs part of a colony-wide reorganisation and modernisation programme of the armament, a new battery was constructed at Stanley with three 9.2 inch calibre Mark X guns mounted on Mark VII mountings. One of these guns came from the battery at Devil's Peak and the other two came from Mount Davis, as both of these batteries were being modernised. The gun shifts were difficult and complex operations as the guns were very heavy, the barrel and breech assembly weighing 28 tons. Everything was done by hand and the pieces, and all their mountings, were transported to Stanley by sea. The two lower guns (No. 2 & No.3) were situated on concrete emplacements now occupied by parabolic antennae dishes in the Cable and Wireless Ltd. Satellite Earth Station complex. These two guns could only fire out to sea and were later encased in concrete gunhouses or casemates by the Japanese who seemed to have kept them in service during the Occupation. The gun houses were demolished and the guns were cut up for scrap in 1952.\n\nThe No. 1 9.2 inch gun mounted on top of \"Gun Hill\" was equipped with all-round traverse, that is, it was able to engage any target, for it was mounted on a circular platform which was rotated mechanically. It was this gun which bombarded the Japanese almost continually from the 14th to 24th December, 1941, firing at the rate of three rounds per half hour at targets as far away as Kowloon City. The shells weighed more than a hundredweight each. The gun was able to fire at this great range due to its mountings which gave a thirty-five degree angle of elevation.\n\nAfter the completion of the new Stanley Battery, two 6 inch naval guns were installed on the Bluff forming a second emergency battery known as Bluff Head Battery. These smaller guns had an effective range of 9,500 yards and also seem to have been equipped with all-round traversers as they could engage land and sea targets. These two batteries were reinforced in December 1941 by two 3.7 inch howitzers in a position in Stanley Village with an observation post in the Officers Mess, and an anti-aircraft battery at Tai Tam Tau. The Japanese reported that \"long-range fortress artillery bombardments were extremely effective.\" Targets were engaged with clock code observation by the Infantry and also where possible by direct observation. In addition, many targets such as road junctions and bridges had been registered and carefully tabulated in the months leading up to the Japanese attack so that direct observation was not really necessary to know that the shells were on target. Japanese artillery set up at the captured", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214428, "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": 286, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "252\n\nSearchlight Emplacements\n\nInside the satellite earth station there is a steep flight of steps from an old generator house down a very rugged and precipitous ravine to a concrete footpath which girdles the south-eastern coast of the peninsula. Remains of old concrete posts at regular intervals suggest a security fence existed at one time alongside the footpath. About halfway along the footpath, situated on a ledge of the cliff, stands a small concrete structure with a semi-circular bow-shaped front and a large open embrasure facing in an easterly direction. This shelter housed one of the coast artillery searchlights for the battery. The searchlight was protected by steel shutters when not in use. The rear part of the shelter housed either a small generator or a series of accumulator batteries to provide the electricity supply to power the searchlight. A second searchlight emplacement can be found further along the footpath facing in a south-easterly direction.\n\nSituated higher up the cliff above the second searchlight emplacement is the searchlight command post. This consists of a two-tiered structure connected by an internal flight of steps. The same standard design as the searchlight emplacement has been used for each tier, the only modification being to increase the height of the parapet wall, which reduces the size of the embrasure opening but still allows observation. This is where the searchlight directing officer and battery observers would have been stationed. Adjacent to the searchlight command post is a small concrete shelter probably used as an off-duty rest room by the searchlight operators and observers working shifts or watches.\n\nDefence electric lights or projectors could be used in either a searchlight role, sweeping across the sea in front of the emplacement picking out and following hostile targets for the gunners to engage, or as a fixed illumination covering constantly a body of water through which enemy ships might pass. The beams could be adjusted to narrow for long range or wide for shorter range, but with a greater area of coverage. Sometimes a system of 'sentry' and 'sweeper' beams would be used. Two lights situated some distance apart would remain in the same position as sentry beams. The light operators would watch for enemy ships passing through their beams, and when something was seen, a third searchlight, the 'sweeper,' would pick up the ship and illuminate it for the guns. Sweepers would also light up at irregular times, make", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214462, "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": 320, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "287\n\nWard was buried on his old drill-field near the Temple of Confucius just within the walls of the city of Sungkiang [Songjiang: pinyin], the prefectural capital of the area now dominated by Shanghai, and the city around which much of his military service with the Ever Victorious Army took place. Harry Franck2 visited the site in 1923 and wrote that “the Chinese built a temple of remembrance over his grave, similar to those built by Chinese for their famous men over the centuries, though unlike the majority with their gleaming yellow roof tiles his was a pathetic little gray-walled enclosure, covered with ordinary tiles, in an open space inside the West Gate, littered here and there with graves and unburied coffins. It was not imposing yet it was several times more so than the tomb the adventurer would probably have had in Massachusetts. Though the temple was but a single-room building, it had an altar with the spirit tablet of Ward, and all the other features of a Chinese temple, and now and again Chinese still come to burn incense and bow down before their hero of Taiping days. A conspicuous tablet in red and black tells those who know their Chinese that:\n\nAn illustrious man from beyond the seas, he came 6000 li to accomplish great deeds and acquire immortal fame by shedding his noble blood. Because of him Sungkiang will be a happy land for a thousand autumns”.\n\nFranck tells us that the temple was not badly kept, as things went in China. There were some trees and flowers in season, inside the compound, and the whole place has been recently repaired and repainted. Rice-straw and cabbages were drying on everything but the altar itself, and the woman caretaker had gone to market to \"buy things\" leaving her small son locked inside. The only foreign hint about the place was an unfinished stone recently set up by the \"Frederick Ward Post of the American Legion\" of Shanghai. He added that the most touching feature of the whole memorial was the mound of earth, like a common Chinese grave, behind the temple, but within the enclosure, under which Ward's big mastiff was buried. After his master's death, the story goes, the dog refused to take food and went wandering about looking for him until it died of starvation.\n\nSo, having seen an early photograph of the official temple,3 altar and tablet dedicated to Ward in Sungkiang some dozen or so years previously, I was determined to see for myself whether it still existed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214638, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "J\n\n17\n\nhouse sites had, by then, been divided into two very tiny separate houses (the original layout probably consisted of 130 houses including the temple). The houses were very tiny - 23' deep by 8.5' wide, totalling no more than 196 square feet. Where the houses had been divided, the small houses were less than 100 square feet each. The houses were too small to have air-wells, and consisted each of only a single room, with a tiny cockloft over a small bedchamber at the back. Few had windows (some had a tiny window at the back, lighting the cockloft, about a foot square, defended with iron bars and closed by shutters), and most were aired and lighted only through the house door. The premises backing onto the outer walls were houses, of the same size as those fronting the lanes.\n\nThe village had no well or open space within the walls. The gatehouse was wider than the lane leading to it inside the walls, and provided space for an earth god shrine, and a ladder giving access to the gun-chamber above the gate. At the other end of the spinal centre lane was the Tin Hau Temple, occupying one house site, and facing the gate directly: the Village Office occupied the house immediately to its north.\n\nThe features of the layout of Nga Tsin Wai which it shares with Tai Wai in Sha Tin are the almost square layout facing the optimum Fung Shui direction and not the cardinal points, the narrow lanes, the tiny houses, the layout of six north-south and three east-west lanes with the first and sixth lanes running back to dead ends against the inner faces of the walls, the existence of premises backing onto the walls which are as big (in most cases) as the houses opening onto the lanes, and the temple occupying a house-site opposite the gate-house. Both villages used the house immediately to the north of the temple as the Village Office. The Tai Wai towers in 1905 did not protrude into the moat, but this may well be a modification introduced when the two villages were rehabilitated after the Coastal Evacuation. Of these features, the narrowness of the lanes and the smallness of the houses are special to the two villages (most walled villages within the New Territories had very many fewer, but very much larger houses, and much wider lanes). In most New Territories walled villages the premises along the two side walls are very much smaller than the houses facing into the lanes, and were designed for use as cattle sheds, pigsties, and latrines: to have houses here is unusual. The dead-ends at the end of the first and sixth lanes are also peculiar to these two villages. Most", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214644, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "were also to be found in Ta Kwu Leng and Ma Tau Wai.\n\n23\n\nIt will be seen that Kowloon City, Kowloon Market, and the suburban villages around them, apart from Sha Po, (that is, Tung Tau, Sai Tau, Hau Wong, and Hoklo Villages) had no part in the League of Seven. These areas were considered to fall immediately under the control of the Sub-Magistrate in Kowloon City, or under the control of the Kowloon Market Kaifong. Apart from these places, the League of Seven covered all the area around Kowloon City.\n\nThe Kowloon City and Kowloon Market areas worshipped at the Hau Wong Temple outside the Walled City, and did not worship at the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau Temple. There was a Tin Hau Temple at Sha Po where the residents in the Market also worshipped. Ma Tau Wai had a temple of its own: this was to Pak Tai, worshipped under the title Sheung Tai (7). Only the gate pillars of this temple survive today, in the Lomond Road Garden.\n\nTo the east of the area of the League of Seven was the large and ancient village of Po Kong, belonging to the Lam (*) clan. Po Kong never joined the League of Seven. Po Kong had its own temple (it was dedicated to Tin Hau), and the Po Kong people did not go to the Tin Hau Temple at Nga Tsin Wai. Chuk Yuen and Sha Tei Yuen were genealogically connected with Po Kong. According to the Nga Tsin Wai elders, the villages of Po Kong, Chuk Yuen, Sha Tei Yuen, Nga Yiu Tau, Ngau Chi Wan (including its \"Mau Tsuen” of Pak Uk Tsai, or Ping Shek), and Yuen Ling (both the Upper and Lower Villages) formed an inter-village alliance of their own, the Six Villages Alliance (AM). Ngau Chi Wan had its own temple, to the Sam Shan Kwok Wong - this temple still survives. According to Ngau Chi Wan village elders, there was no Six Villages' Ta Tsiu, but Ngau Chi Wan conducted these rituals on its own every ten years. Ngau Chi Wan also held the She (£) feast before their higher earth god, every year, when every family made an offering of food, which later formed the basis of the communal feast. Ngau Chi Wan was, clearly, rather independent where the worship of the deities was concerned, and may well have been rather less well-integrated into the Six Villages than the villages closer to Po Kong. Ngau Chi Wan was a Hakka village, founded in the very early eighteenth century. It was founded by the Lau (1) clan, but the To (†), Yeung (), Tsang (4), and Yip () clans joined the Laus during the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214646, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "25\n\nSeven, rather than into any relationship with Po Kong. Tai Hom was the only Hakka village in the League of Seven. It was probably this Hakka ethnicity, their rejection by Po Kong, and their relative isolation from Nga Tsin Wai that led the Tai Hom villagers to establish a temple of their own outside their village, somewhere in the period 1821-1850, probably late in the period: it was greatly expanded in 1904. This temple, the Tung Shan Temple (it was dedicated to Kwun Yam) became, for a short period during the 1920s and 1930s, the main religious focus of the \"thirteen villages of Kowloon\", that is, the villages of both the League of Seven and of the Six Villages Alliance, but it was left ruined in the War.\n\nThe land south of Ma Tau Kok formed part of the Alliance of Three (三聯盟) of Hung Hom (Hung Hom including Tai Wan, Hok Yuen including Shek Shan, and To Kwa Wan, probably including Ma Tau Kok). The land east of Ngau Chi Wan and Pak Uk Tsai formed the inter-village alliance called \"The Four Stone Hills\" (四石嶺). This was a sworn alliance of the quarry-villages of this mountainous and infertile area (Ngau Tau Kok, Sai Cho Wan, Cha Kwo Ling, and Lei Yue Mun).\n\nInter-village alliances normally centre on joint worship by the elders, either at the higher earth god of the area, or at the local temple. Nothing is now remembered in Nga Tsin Wai of any inter-village worship by the elders of the League of Seven as a group at any higher earth god shrine, nor of any She, * , Feast of the elders in front of the shrine. However, the Nga Tsin Wai villagers do not now even remember where their earth gods used to stand - they were all removed by the Japanese, except for the earth god of the Village Gate - so too much should not be made of this. The elders of the villages of the League of Seven did and do worship the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau, however, on her Birthday each year (the Tai Hom elders consider the villages of the League of Seven as \"belonging to the Tin Hau of Nga Tsin Wai\"): it is likely that this was the ritual focus of the League, and that the meetings of the elders of the district took place after the worship. The elders hold a feast today after the worship of Tin Hau, and this is probably a very ancient tradition. The Temple, however, was the property of Nga Tsin Wai alone (it is owned by all three of the Nga Tsin Wai clans, and the Manager of the Temple, chosen by the elders of the three clans, is the Village Headman): it was probably for this reason that, on her Birthday, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214684, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "63\n\n16 The date is engraved on the earth god shrine in the village\n\nFor the Ta Tsiu at Nga Tsin Wai, see J W Hayes, The Rural Communities of Hong Kong Studies and Themes, Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1983, pp 157-159 See also p 162\n\n18 These guns were all sunk in the moat immediately to the south of the village gate when the Japanese came\n\n19 In the 1902 Block Crown Lease, the Ancestral Hall is shown as the Ng Kit-san house, and the Ng Kit-san house as the Ancestral Hall by some strange error\n\n0\n\n1\n\n༣།\n\nDespatch from Sir M Nathan to Colonial Office, January 11th, 1905, in file CO882/6, printed in Eastern No 88, Confidential Hong Kong Correspondence [December 15 1903 to February 27 1907] Relating to the Proposed Canton Kowloon Railway', printed for the use of the Colonial Office, April 1907, No 59, pp 81-88\n\nThe slopes to the east of Lion Rock were under the protection of Kwun Yam These slopes were called Tsz Wan Shan (Fill, “Mountain of the Cloud of Compassion one of the titles of Kwun Yam) There has been a temple to Kwun Yam half way up to the pass since at least 1853, probably much earlier The early ownership of this temple is unclear\n\nInformation on the Chus is taken from their Tsuk Po, a copy of which I was kindly given by Dr James Hayes, and from notes of interviews Dr Hayes had with Chu clan elders in the 1960s See also, Southern District Board, 1996, p 138\n\nOn the Tung Shan Temple, see J W Hayes, \"The Kwun Yam - Tung Shan Temple of East Kowloon, 1840-1940”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol 23, 1983 pp 212-218\n\n*For instance, in Aed (), Joint Publishing (Hong Kong), 1994, p 44, and RPF Lam, ed The Hong Kong Album, Urban Council, Hong Kong, 1982, p 66\n\n25 I am indebted to Dr James Hayes for much of the detail of this section\n\n26 See A Lui, Forts and Pirates, op cit p 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214704, "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": 119, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "SAFEGUARDING ONE'S FORTUNES: THE IMPORTANCE OF TUN FU\n\nDAN WATERS\n\n83\n\nIntroduction\n\nWhat do Hong Kong's New Territories' residents do when civil engineering work is to be carried out which will spoil the feng shui of their village? How do they alleviate misfortunes and protect themselves from shaat hei (evil influences) and the wrath of spirits? The short answer is they hold a tun fu ceremony.1 With the Chinese character, fu, meaning amulet or charm, the term tun fu (sometimes romanised as tan fu) denotes a group of talismans.2\n\nThis paper sets out to examine a particular, large, tun fu ceremony at Pat Heung and what purpose it served. Comparisons are made with other tun fu ceremonies. How do rites differ? How do women feel about being excluded from participating roles? Do villagers really believe in tun fu? Will such practices continue in the future? The Chinese characters in this paper have been romanised generally using the Cantonese pronunciation, which is the dialect understood by 95 per cent of Hong Kong's population and the dialect used when performing tun fu ceremonies in the Territory. When dollars are quoted, unless otherwise specified, they are Hong Kong dollars.\n\nThere is a general dearth of information about tun fu including details of observations of actual ceremonies. In addition, it is surprising how little Chinese urban folk know about New Territories' customs. The Author has asked many, including some persons who are considered authorities on local, Chinese customs and culture. Most, including some urban feng shui masters even, had never heard of tun fu. To make sure they understood the question they were shown the two relevant Chinese characters (see 'Transliteration'). Bearing in mind that the Territory is a compact place, and even though there is little mention of such activities by the media, this still struck the Author as surprising. In fact the feng shui masters' loss of face, on being unable to answer such question, resulted in some hesitation and their replying generally about unrelated aspects of feng shui.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214706, "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": 121, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "85\n\nof tun fu ceremonies which, collectively, were said to be the largest of their kind ever held in Hong Kong.*\n\nAfter referring to the Chinese almanac, Tung Sing, believed by some to be the world's oldest, continuous publication, an auspicious day, the 7th day of the Second Moon in the Year of the Rabbit, was selected for holding the main tun fu ceremony. The Author was invited. Thirty-six committee representatives attended with some of the larger of the 26 villages taking part having two representatives. Previously, other smaller tun fu ceremonies for individual villages at Pat Heung had been held, the first at the time of Lap Chun. This festival marks the advent of spring in the Chinese solar calendar, when winter ends, the earth awakens and there is a spirit of renewal in the air. In 1999, the year this tun fu festival was held, Lap Chun fell on February 4. Each village taking part in the Pat Heung ceremony displays at least one tun fu pot which each holds one split-bamboo talisman. Such a practice is not uncommon as, in the dawn of Chinese history, charms were frequently carved on bamboo. At Pat Heung, in 1999, some villages had three and some even as many as eight pots.\n\nDuties for the person(s) performing tun fu ceremonies start well before the due date. He has to decide how many pots are required. Where will they be placed? Why should they be placed here and not there? How many talismans will be put in each pot and which gods will be summoned. Which magical forces will be brought to bear to protect the fung shui? What supplications will be written on the split bamboo talismans? Although the main rules that priests or masters follow may be similar there will be differences in detail, which can be pronounced, as the reader will see later.\n\nThe main ceremony, which the Author attended, was held in Sheung Tsuen (Village), in Pat Heung District, on March 24, 1999, where obviously a great deal of planning and preparation had been necessary before the big day. Here, alongside a 150 or so year-old, small-leaf, Chinese banyan tree, a matshed, approximately 9-metres long by 6-metres deep by 10-metres high, had been erected. For a religious ceremony to take place near a tree, with wood being one of the Chinese Five Elements, is quite natural. The banyan after all, with its trailing roots, gives the impression of multiplication, and from there the move to 'fertility' and the extended Chinese family is but a small", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214707, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "86\n\nstep (Baker; 1981,15).\n\nThe matshed consisted of a light bamboo frame clad with thin metal sheets, which are more fire resistant than the old rattan mats that were used years ago (see Figure 1). A compartment at one end housed four henchmen and their god, called by the villagers Tai Wong Ye, sometimes translated as 'Great Ancient King' (Myers; 1975,19)(see Plate 3). The same god in urban Hong Kong is usually called Daai Si Wong (Baker; 1979,121). Different names for the same god can cause confusion. The matshed faced southeast (feng shui south), in the direction of the Kwan Yin Ancient Temple. The number of Taoist priests taking part in the ceremony inside the matshed, with some arriving late, fluctuated from five to seven. Even priests get caught in traffic jams. There was a small group of musicians in the matshed playing, between them, a trumpet, gongs, cymbals and a small drum. Percussion instruments took pride of place. The matshed also contained dishes of fruit, to be offered up to the gods, and paper offerings. Joss sticks were burned.\n\nThere was a great deal of incantation, much read from a book taken off the altar, and some kneeling. Rice wine was deliberately spilled on the floor in the process of purification and offering it up to the gods. The gods of east (the Green King), south (the Red King), west (the White King), north (the Black King) and centre (the Yellow Emperor) were beseeched, in rising and falling tones, to come down to protect the district in words that were not easy to link together and to understand. The Chinese animal sign of the year is said to represent a direction. There the planet Jupiter is located (Lo; 1992,162). This has important feng shui implications. One should not disturb the earth in this direction. The Taoist priests who perform such ceremonies are often called, in slang, naam moh lo.$\n\nLooking at Figure 2, in the bottom right-hand corner one can see a metal container in which are situated the five bamboo talismans on which, during the ceremony, are written the respective entreaties to the appropriate gods. Also on the crudely framed timber altar (see Figure 2), draped with a red cloth, are bowls of fruit, three cups of tea, three cups of wine and various items used during the ceremony.\" They include a book of chants, a crown worn by the head priest, musical instruments and sticks for the musicians to strike the percussion", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214708, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "87\n\ninstruments.\n\nTwo native Cantonese speakers remarked at the ceremony that they each understood only about 10 per cent of what the priests were chanting. Thus, it was not always easy to follow exactly what was going on. This helps keep the priestly profession a closed shop. Priests are paid not only for performing ceremonies but also for knowing how to perform them.\n\nNote (see Plate 1) the five tun fu pots used to guard and protect each direction of the Chinese compass (including centre), with one talisman in each. These were later lined up in front of the matshed. After 'heaven and earth were made ready' messages to the respective gods were written on each strip of split bamboo (each about 75 centimetres long and four centimetres wide) after each strip, and the brush, had been purified by prayer and incense. The red paper horse at the front of the matshed acted as an emissary for letters, pleas and charms dispatched to heaven (Stevens: 1997, 121). The horse was constantly being blown over in the wind and one wondered, unless it could be anchored down in a secure way (which it never was), whether its magical powers would be affected. Anyway, few seemed concerned. During much of the ceremony ordinary villagers came in ones and twos and burnt joss sticks in front of Tai Wong Ye and his four henchmen.\n\nThe ceremony in the matshed lasted about one hour. After this was over we were bussed to an expanse of open ground not far from Lin Fa Tei (Lotus Ground), a 10-minute drive away. From here, we could see where the new railway tunnel's northern portal will be situated. A further ceremony took place not far from this spot, again officiated over by the same Taoist priests and attended by the same village elders, committee representatives, and government officials (see Plates 4 and 5). There was more chanting, more joss sticks and paper offerings were burned, and medium-sized roast pigs (brought from the ceremony inside the matshed) were presented up to the gods. Rice wine was again sprinkled on the ground for purification.\n\nIt was pointed out by a villager, who had lived in Britain for over 30 years and spoke fair English, that over 1000 village graves and burial urns had been moved to make way for the new tunnel. A small river had been filled in. In spite of the landscape having been considerably", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214710, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "89\n\ncalled. 'hair vegetable), is a homonym for 'get rich'. This basin-meal lunch was the final item on the agenda for the day that the main ceremony was held.\n\nWith this having taken place on the Wednesday at Sheung Tsuen, and the god, Taai Wong Ye, having been burned the same evening, the bamboo-framed matshed was dismantled the following day. As follow up, the Author thus decided to return to the village three days later. The five tun fu pots filled with sand, with a single, split-bamboo talisman with prayers written on it in each pot, had been placed circling the old banyan tree (see Plate 7). Tied to the top of each talisman was a golden (foil) kam fa and a red ribbon - both auspicious colours. There were remains of joss sticks burned by villagers.\n\n10\n\nFurther follow up visits by the Author revealed that, on the 1st and the 15th of every Chinese month especially, joss sticks are burned near the tun fu pots largely by elderly women on behalf of their families. Nevertheless, the pots often give the impression of not being particularly well looked after. The site is untidy. This is a pity. The new West Railway line, of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, is planned to come into operation in November 2003. The tunnel is due to be finished in 2002. The pots will be left for the full duration of its construction and, if they cease to be effective, a nuen fu ('warming' of the talismans) \"revival ceremony\" may be needed. If so, Taoist priests will again officiate.\n\nComparisons of various tun fu ceremonies\n\nHow does the Pat Heung ceremony compare with other tun fu ceremonies that have been conducted elsewhere (Baker; 1980, 21)? Unfortunately the Author has not been able to find any written information, nor has he heard any oral accounts of tun fu ceremonies conducted outside Hong Kong although he gathers they do take place in places like Taiwan. Often in Hong Kong, like the one mentioned earlier (see Endnote 1) on Ma Wan Island, or those that the Author has seen in places like Sha Tin and Kam Tin, the pots were placed near earth-god shrines. All these ceremonies were much smaller than the main ceremony at Pat Heung described in this paper. No matsheds were erected at these smaller gatherings. Sometimes ceremonies are held close to tsz tongs (ancestral halls), although not normally inside.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214711, "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": 126, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "90\n\ntemples. Nevertheless, in the case of the Pat Heung tun fu ceremony, the party did go into the temple as the reader saw, but only briefly to pay respects to the gods.\n\nAs another example, again in a predominantly Hakka community at Tai Wo Village, also in Pat Heung district, another tun fu ceremony took place on Wednesday 14 April, 1999, near an earth god shrine again close to a banyan tree. The Author attended. This time it was conducted by a single, part-time, feng shui master (not by a Taoist priest) who did not really look the part in his black, Chinese jacket, jeans and the ubiquitous sports shoes. He lives in a village on Tai Mo Shan. However, in this case, a native Cantonese speaker remarked he could understand most of what the officiating person was chanting. The Author, too, could understand a certain amount. A short walk followed this one-hour long ceremony, with the feng shui master leading the party over to the well to offer up prayers to its god. The village has had mains water for twenty years or so. Obviously, in the past, it was important to pay respects to the well god. Yet the practice continues. Precautions need to be taken to safeguard this valuable commodity, understandably, whether the supply is from a well or from the mains.\n\nEveryone present at this Tai Wo ceremony was given a red lai shi, lucky envelope containing $20, which apparently came from the coffers of the village. This appeared not to be too affluent. One wondered at the time, how many onlookers felt great and mysterious things were happening during this ceremony? It was, nevertheless, all followed by a pleasant picnic-style lunch under the banyan. Again, all present ate roast pork, which had previously been offered up to the gods. A government officer informed the Author that the villagers were pleased he was present, taking an interest in their tun fu ceremony. This pleasure appeared genuine. Certainly, everyone was very friendly, including the feng shui master who, in this case, willingly answered the Author's questions without any hint that he wanted to keep the profession a closed shop.\n\nNot only with tun fu but with Christianity, too, different denominations' beliefs and practices vary, sometimes markedly. Even within the Church of England with its high church and low church, and from one clergyman to another - with their different leanings, political or otherwise, variations can be considerable, not to mention far greater", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214721, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "'double happiness', to sprigs of foo paak (hibiscus), a homonym also meaning 'wealth' or 'riches'. By comparison in the West, in rural England, a horseshoe is sometimes displayed at the entrance of a cottage to bring luck.\n\n3\n\nThe Pat Heung Valley covers an area of just over 50 square kilometres.\n\n* The Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation later reimbursed the Hong Kong Government.\n\n5\n\nBecause of the rising and falling naam moh sound of their chanting. Lo means 'fellow'.\n\nf These are normally in threes. One is offered up for heaven, one for earth and one for mankind.\n\n7\n\nThe number of urban Chinese who have never partaken of a basin meal frequently surprises the Author.\n\n*To make them more attractive and presentable for the gods.\n\nThe Author has been informed that tun fu ceremonies do take place outside Hong Kong although he has never observed them or seen anything about them in writing. Although there has been a religious revival in China in recent years, he has never observed any tun fu pots on the Mainland although that does not mean they do not exist. A fellow researcher has told him that they may be seen in Xiamen.\n\n10\n\nBy comparison, at Pat Heung there were five pots with one talisman in each. At the Sha Tin ceremony there was one pot with five talismans and the same at Kam Tin and Tai Wo. At Ma Wan there were two pots with three talismans in each.\n\nThe same applies to feng shui where different schools exist. Again, masters have their own ideas. One who the Author accompanied on assignments in urban Hong Kong believes in placing crystal in homes to absorb impure influences. A similar custom is also found in the West.\n\n12\n\nFor which the Hong Kong Government is said to have paid $40,000.\n\n13\n\nIt was made illegal to let off firecrackers in 1967 (the year of prolonged riots).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214752, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "131\n\nGandi. R.L. Season of Storms: The Siege of Hong Kong 1941, Hong Kong. South China Morning Post, 1982.\n\nGreenhous, B. \"C Force to Hong Kong: A Canadian Catastrophe. 1941-1945. Oxford, Dundurn Press. 1997.\n\n1956.\n\nGuest, F. Escape From the Bloodied Sun, London: Hutchinson, 1956.\n\nHahn, E. \"Preparing for War.\" Ch 48 in White, B.S. ed. Hong Kong: Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth, Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 198-205.\n\n1943.\n\nHarrop, P. Hong Kong Incident, London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1943.\n\nHay, I. Singapore Repulsed, Edinburgh, Pentland Press, 1998.\n\nHong Kong Government. “Events in Hong Kong on 25th December 1941\", Hong Kong Government Gazette: Special Supplement, 2 July 1948.\n\nJapan Defence Office. The Hong Kong-Cheung Sha Operation, Tokyo, War History Division, 1971. (Japanese publication) [Honkon Chosa Sakusen, Boeichoikenshusho Senshishitzu, Asagumo Shimbunsha, Tokyo, 1971]\n\n1952.\n\nKemp, P. The Middlesex Regiment, Aldershot, Gale and Polden, 1952.\n\nKennedy, Paul, Strategy and Diplomacy: 1870-1945, London, Fontana, 1989.\n\nKo, T.K. and Tong, C.M. Hong Kong: Japanese Occupation Period, Hong Kong, Joint Publishing (HK) Co. Ltd., 1995. (Chinese publication)\n\nKo, T.K. and Wordie, J Ruins of War: a Guide to Hong Kong's Battlefields and Wartime Sites, Hong Kong, Joint Publishing (HK) Co. Ltd., 1996.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214802, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "182\n\nCheung, Sydney 'Being Here, Searching 'There': Hong Kong as a Virtual Community'; in Sydney Cheung (ed.) On the South China Track : Perspectives on Anthropological Research and Teaching (Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Research Monographs No.40). Hong Kong. The Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\nChiu, Fred Yen Liang 1997 'Politics and the Body Social in Colonial Hong Kong', Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia, ed. Tani E. Barlow. Durham and London. Duke University Press.\n\nChoi Chi-Cheung 1995 'Reinforcing Ethnicity: the Jiao festival in Cheung Chau,' Down to Earth : The Territorial Bond in South China, ed. David Faure and Helen Siu. Stanford; Stanford University Press.\n\nCohen, Anthony P (ed.) 1982 Belonging : identity and social organisation in British rural cultures. Manchester. Manchester University Press.\n\n1985 The Symbolic Construction of Community. London and New York. Routledge.\n\n1986 (ed.) Symbolising Boundaries : Identity and Diversity in British Cultures. Manchester. Manchester University Press.\n\nCohen, Robin 1997 Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Seattle. University of Washington Press.\n\nCoyne, Richard 1999 Technoromanticism : digital narrative, holism, the romance of the real. Cambridge, Mass. M.I.T. Press.\n\nDirlik, Arif 1994 'The post-colonial aura : third world criticism in age of global capitalism' Journal of Asian Studies 328-356 20.2 (Winter)\n\nEvans, Grant 1998 The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos since 1975. Chiang Mai; Silkworm Books.\n\nand Maria Tam 1997 ‘Introduction' to Hong Kong : The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis, ed. Grant Evans and Maria Tam. Richmond; Curzon Press.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214821, "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": 236, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "202\n\nTo this day, services for the departed, whether as newly-deceased souls or as wandering spirits, command the greater part of the time of practitioners from the two religions. Apart from the varied religious services carried out in the homes of the deceased, or in the temples and monasteries where similar rites were held for the departed, both Buddhists and Taoists are prominent in the rituals carried out in public places at the Hungry Ghost Festival.23 This, the most important ritualistic pacification of wandering souls and spirits during the lunar year, is still performed throughout Hong Kong on behalf of the general public by priests of the two religions, hired by local committees and associations.\n\nWhat People Want: Individual Expectations from Acts of Worship\n\nIn approaching the gods, whether in the temples and monasteries, or at the earth god shrines on the street or in the fields, the worshippers had specific requirements in view. Then as now, worshipping itself was principally devoted to obtaining divine assistance in time of trouble or to attain the object of one's desire or supplication. These usually concerned health and wealth, as well as general preservation from all ills, for oneself and for family members, deceased as well as living. There was also the need to obtain protection (because of their great potential for harm) from the general body of those many departed souls without living male descendants to care for them.\n\nUnlike the ritual services, worshipping was not carried out with the help of intermediaries from the two religions. It is a personal act, usually conducted by the individual before the altars in temples, monasteries or nunneries, or at the tombs of deceased family members and ancestors at certain fixed times of the lunar year.\n\nAs Archdeacon Moule says - and it bears repeating because it is so basic to an understanding of how Chinese people think and act - the prayers of the worshippers one sees in the temples are being \"addressed to images representing deities of living and present power.\n\n24 In Hong Kong, a visit to a large city temple like the Wong Tai Sin Temple in New Kowloon at a major festival leaves one in no doubt that the people believe in the ability of the god to grant their requests. Nor is satisfaction kept to oneself. The word soon gets around, and since the worship", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214823, "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": 238, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "204\n\nEarth Gods and Tree Spirits\n\nBesides the gods of Buddhism and Taoism worshipped in the village temples, there were also the gods of each locality. In the villages of the Hong Kong Region, in addition to whatever temples had been erected to the deities, it was usual for there to be several earth gods in each village, and in each of the streets in the local market centres. These animistic spirits were equally sought out by the village people.30 Besides the regular acts of worship performed at the shrines, with their supplications and thanksgivings, it was common practice to place children, especially boys, under the protection of a temple deity, an earth god or a tree spirit during the uncertain years of childhood, in order to secure protection against the many dangers that beset young lives. If a tree died or had to be felled, the protégés were transferred to another protector, with the appropriate ceremonies of disengagement (recognition of and thanksgiving for favours bestowed) and adoption at each place.31 Either Buddhist or Taoist priests were required for such rituals.\n\n31\n\nChinese Women and Religion\n\nFinally, it should be noted that Chinese women are considered to be more religious than their menfolk. As Rev. Dr. Robert Morrison's biographer observed in the last century:\n\n46\n\n'...their nature is much more religious than that of the men...it is they who visit the temples. The incense pots which smoulder before the placid countenance of Buddha are filled and kindled by them; they burn ten sheets of paper to the men's one....The men can do without worship, the women cannot.”32\n\nFrom my observations in Hong Kong and elsewhere, I believe this to be as true of today's worshippers as when it was written one hundred years ago.\n\nNOTES\n\nWilliam Frederick Mayers, The Chinese Reader's Manual (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1874) called them \"The Three systems of Doctrine (or Religion)\" and stated that they “constitute the recognized systems of religion,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214884, "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": 299, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "270\n\nJust like two silk strings, they hung down into the cave, and it appeared as if the Golden Bell was hanging from them. Now this official was a Fung Shui master, and he realised that this was a marvellous Fung Shui site - \"The Golden Bell Hanging from Silk Strings\",\n\nIf he could bury a relative there, his family would become immensely important. So when a certain family member died, he was taken there for burial. Within less than three years, the official was promoted to a position of great wealth, as if he had soared up on the back of a golden dragon!\n\nNow this man always acted despotically and arbitrarily to make life more comfortable for himself. He ordered the fisher-people that every year they were to draw up their boats at the Spring and Autumn Sacrifices, so that they formed a bridge over the sea, boat next to boat, so it would be easier for him to worship his ancestors, and to show off his high position. Each time, the fisher-people had to waste seven or eight days, thus affecting their livelihood. By thus making fools of the people, they started to seethe with anger. A certain Fung Shui master came to learn of all this, and everything this worthless dog-official was doing. He came by night to tell the fisher-people how to destroy his Fung Shui: all they had to do was to cut off the two roots which pierced the summit of the crag.\n\nShortly afterwards, the Autumn Sacrifices came round. After the rituals were completed, the fisher-people decided to act on the Fung Shui master's advice, and to cut off the roots, and thus secure their aim of a peaceful life. But the next year, at the Spring Sacrifices, it was found that the roots had grown back just as they had been before. The fisher-people were deeply dejected. They could see no hope of a peaceful future. They decided to return to the Fung Shui master to see if he could come up with some clever plan. At first the master was nonplussed, but eventually, after he had given the matter considerable thought, he suddenly realised that this \"Golden Bell Hanging from Silk Strings\" Fung Shui site drew to itself the spiritual forces of Heaven and Earth, so that the essence of the Sun and the Moon impregnated the site, and thus made it very strong. The vegetation and the trees there were thus exceptionally full of vigour and vitality. Not to speak of cutting the roots off once - even if they were cut millions of times they", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214897, "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": 312, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "286\n\nOur fourth day started at 8.00 a.m. as we headed off to Danang via Hai Van Pass. The scenic ride took us up the mountains, travelling from north to south through Cloudy Pass (Hai Van). This pass was established under the Minh Mang dynasty and the fortresses here were strategic points during the war for the defence by the French and Vietnamese soldiers. But all these monuments were badly damaged during the American War. En route, we also saw the beautiful Lang Co Beach, a resort area, as well as the \"Reunification Express\" train passing through one of the level crossings. Our coach stopped to enable us to obtain a picture of this historic train, which is still powered by steam! Finally, we arrive at Danang for a quick lunch followed by a tour of the Cham Museum.\n\nDanang, the provincial capital, has grown from a small fishing village into an important port and the country's fourth-largest city with 400,000 inhabitants. It is the port where 3,500 American marines first set foot in South Vietnam, on 8th March 1965. In the 17th and 18th centuries the first Spanish and French landings were also made here. Subsequently, Danang became the scene of battles between the Vietnamese, who fought first the Spanish and later the French. In the course of the 19th century Danang superseded Hoi An as the most important port and commercial centre in the central region of the country.\n\nThe Danang area was the centre of the Cham civilization, from the fourth to the eighth centuries. The Cham museum was set up in 1936 by the Ecole Francaise D'Extreme Orient. Its extensive collection is displayed in four rooms featuring the following four periods according to their origins: My Son, Tra Kieu, Dong Duong and Thap Mam. The different influences, which shaped the culture and history of the Cham people, are revealed through their sculpture and carvings. The Cham Museum provides an insight into the fascinating culture and history of the Cham people. Many statues and bas reliefs attest to the rich culture of the kingdom which once flourished there and one realizes the worship of Buddhism and Hinduism was prevalent at that time.\n\nAfter the Cham Museum off we went to Marble Mountain. Five miles south of Danang towards the coast stand five large hills known as the Marble Mountains or Mountains of the Five Elements (gold, metal, wood, fire and earth). These mountains were once a group of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214955, "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-2000", "page_number": 51, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "6\n\nmet in armed conflict - futile and unnecessary. Ironically, both were strongly devoted to tea though their actual taste in tea may have been different.\n\nThe Chinese did not call their country China. To them it was the Middle Kingdom, the kingdom between heaven and earth, the Celestial Kingdom. The Emperor was the Son of Heaven who possessed divine powers. Their civilization was 5,000 years old, and for nearly half that period they lived in solid houses, dressed in silk, and produced works of art which are still admired today. Almost completely isolated from the western world since the Song Dynasty, China was oblivious to the achievements of the West in many fields. Proud and self-contained, China shunned outside contacts. In their self-proclaimed superiority, the Chinese in the 18th century still believed that only barbarians lived beyond their boundaries and that their countries were automatically vassal states of the Celestial Kingdom. Chinese contempt for foreigners persisted into the later periods, no doubt fuelled by the shameful behaviour of the foreign powers towards China, humbled and humiliated by the defeats in the Opium Wars. 'Barbarian devils' was a description often uttered even by relatively enlightened Chinese. Is it then any wonder that even in our time “Kwai Lo” (though no longer “Fan Kwai”) is still often heard, though perhaps more in jest, and used even by the foreigners themselves?\n\nBritain, on the other hand, in the early 19th century was opening one of the most glorious pages of its history. Napoleon was defeated and France was no longer a threat. The Royal Navy reigned supreme over the waves and Britain had become truly a great imperial power dominating huge areas of territory and much of the trade from the New World to the Far East. In 1837 the young Queen Victoria ascended the throne and a long period of British colonial rule had asserted itself. The British nation had every reason to feel proud and superior. But with superiority came also arrogance and a deep distrust of foreigners.\n\nWe live in a time when the world has discarded Imperialism and Colonialism, the right of strong nations to rule over weak ones, when some disputes at least are settled in a forum of nations, when the right of all peoples to self-determination is recognized. The latter is a recent principle: born of the Versailles Treaty, after the 1st World War, it has forged ahead without stopping. But in the 19th century, imperialism", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214973, "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-2000", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "25\n\n“As you wish, madame.” He gave us a second-class cabin, looked at our son doubtfully. \"Tall for his age, isn't he? Only four and something, did you say?\"\n\nAnd another, equally persuasive fragment:\n\nIn Singapore we were refused a room at the English hotel, and the Chinese ones were very hot and uncomfortable; there was opium-smoking, prostitution and gambling all round us. Marguerite had prickly heat, and our son cried all night long. Our clothes were all too heavy for the damp, hot weather\n\nHaving returned home as a former engineering student from Belgium, Han Suyin's father was then employed by the Belgian company developing a railway network throughout the Chinese interior. There are many fragments in the pages of her books, referring to this period in her and her family's lives. A happy one is given already in Chapter One of The Crippled Tree:\n\nRailways meant a lot to my father, and they were also part of the climate of my growth since my childhood was spent in small or large railway stations. Even now, whenever I hear the siren hoot of an engine, my childhood comes cantering back to me.\n\nInequality between Western high school diplomas granted to the Chinese and to the whites was indisputable, self-evident and absolutely “natural,” and was thus quite impossible to argue against. The Chou family was confronted with this inequality right from their re-settlement to China. In Chapter Nineteen of The Crippled Tree, Han Suyin mentions:\n\nIt was in the yellow plains of Honan; not far from it, the Yellow River had burst its dykes and gone flooding once again, and there were many displaced peasants and also bandits and soldiers, the latter more than the former and more to be feared. The little station was safe, however. There the Big Engineer, whose name was spoken of with indrawn breath and a small pause of respect because he was a Belgian and had a large salary, stayed in a new brick house constructed specially for him on a small hill. Mama and Papa lived in a small Chinese house of earth walls on the other side of the railway, about two miles away", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215064, "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-2000", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "117\n\nSoochow in 1885 noted that \"the image of the cycle god with arms protruding out of his eye-sockets, has eyes in the palms of his hands, looking downward to see secret things within the earth\". This apparently unique feature has also been seen on an entirely different deity in a mural in a temple at Kepala Batas near Butterworth in northern Malaysia. This is Feng Bo, the God of the Wind, with miniature arms emerging from his eye-sockets.\n\nIn a number of temples where images of the Twenty-four Celestial Generals [Ershi si Tianjun] are located down the inside of the temple main hall's side walls, a ferocious blue-faced demonic general, with a club in each hand and long vicious fangs, is labelled as the Taisui of the Months (Yue Taisui).\n\nThe Rôle of Taisui\n\nToday Taisui is a popular folk religion stellar deity, the 'ruler of time' and an arbiter of the destiny of mankind worshipped to avert calamities. He is known to some foreigners as the god of astrology. He rules the cycle of sixty years, of which each year is ruled by one of the subsidiary Taisui. Matching a human's birth date and times with the cycle provides auspicious and inauspicious years. Despite a Singapore god-carver's claim that Taisui is not a heavenly deity but a good example of an earthly deity, a \"half-spirit\" [banshen], the deity is viewed by the man-in-the-street, and the Pearl River boat people in particular, as an exceptionally powerful, wilful, and fierce god, popularly feared as one who must never be angered and needs to be placated to avoid disasters and sickness. He is said to strike when least expected and can injure and destroy the highest and the lowliest, at home or on the high road, but is believed never to injure anyone in the vicinity of his, Taisui's, own person. It is therefore essential to know where he is at any given moment, and if he is nearby and not immediately present, he is at his most dangerous; precautions have to be taken at once. This is done by hanging the appropriate talisman or stellar charm near the front door or facing the entrance. As Taisui can be so destructive, it is important to pinpoint his location at any given time to ensure that work on a project or building is not carried out during the actual time he is passing by. This is done by geomantic specialists who employ a specialist compass with a complicated diagram consisting of the twelve terrestrial stems or branches [horary characters - see below under Time and Calendars].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215073, "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-2000", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "126\n\nWorkload of the Gods\n\nAn idle passing thought - The endless stream of pleas for assistance and advice by devotees to the gods and goddesses in general is beyond our comprehension, especially when we consider the burden of the daily workload of the God of Sickness, the Maternity Goddess, as well as that of the God of Wealth, particularly on race days at the Jockey Club in Hong Kong or the Canidrome in Macau. If we then reflect on the daily workload of the members of the Ministry of Time, what exactly do they all do? Apart from the image of the President, the images of the ten members of the Ministry do not appear on altars and are therefore not venerated by devotees nor are they approached for specific blessings. It would be blasphemy to suggest that their posts are sinecures but looking back at the rôle of certain mandarins during dynastic times, with the celestial mandarinate so strongly paralleling their terrestrial counterparts, it does leave one with a strong suspicion that the Gods of Time are not exactly overworked in their celestial duties. The workers, the Sixty Taisui, do however have an onerous workload, complying with the requests of devotees seeking from their individual Taisui of their year, protection from all evil and calamities.\n\nAlthough Taisui is the Minister of Time, another major deity, Fu Xi, has been credited not only with the establishment of kingly rule and of marriage laws, but also the computation of time by inventing a form of calendar using a knotted cord. The Eight Trigrams (bagua) are attributed to Fu Xi as well as the development of a system of fortune telling using these trigrams, which has governed the lives of a great many Chinese ever since. Geomancers to this day use their specialist compass to read the future. It comprises concentric bands in which there are the Eight Trigrams of Fu Xi, the twelve branches, the ten stems, the twenty-four solar periods, the Twenty-eight Constellations,\n\nas well as the Thirty-six Stars of the 'Plough' [Tiangang Xing 太綱星] and the Seventy-two Stars of Evil Omen [Disha Xing 地煞星].\n\nTime and Calendars\n\nAlthough time is no more than the distance the Earth turns in one day, together with its human sub-divisions, there are two separate and distinct types of time, the first being lunar and solar time, and the second,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215075, "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-2000", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "128\n\nChinese lives have long been regulated by two separate calendars, the lunar and the solar. To agrarian peasants the accuracy of the combined calendars is of vital importance having long had a religious as well as a practical function. Chinese geomancers use their skills of prediction melding the religious and practical so that time and what in the west would be regarded as astrology are intermingled. Lunar calendars cannot predict the seasons any more than the solar calendar can predict the full and new moons.\n\nAll Chinese religious festivals follow the lunar calendar which changes from year to year, complicated by whether a particular lunar month has twenty-nine or thirty days. Festivals play a major rôle in people's lives breaking up the monotony of life. There were, and still are, three major annual festivals: San Jie, known colloquially as guo jie literally as 'passing the joint', consisting of guo nian, the festival of seeing the old year out and the new year in; guo duanwu, the Dragon Boat Festival on the Double Fifth; and guo zhongqiu, the Autumn Festival, on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. The great majority of festivals in China have been and still are determined by the waxing and waning of the moon.\n\nUntil 1911 an annual Imperial Lunar or ‘Dynastic' Calendar, known as the Yellow Calendar, the determination of which was a royal prerogative, was precisely calculated following meticulous observations by Chinese astronomers in order that imperial ritual sacrifices could be carried out and confirmation obtained for political action. This legitimised the emperor's power to rule and his claim to the Mandate of Heaven. The one stationary star of the Heavens was the Pole Star around which all other stars seem to circulate. The Pole Star was recognised as the linchpin of the heavens. Chinese emperors were cosmic figures, the equivalent on Earth of the Pole Star, with their every move regulated in conjunction with astrology. The calendar divided the year into twelve months; the new moon fell predictably on the first of each lunar month and the full moon on the fifteenth. A similar popular Calendar, known as the Farmers' Almanac, costing coppers, was and still is widely circulated amongst the masses. This enabled, and still enables, the population, mainly the peasants and petty merchants, to be informed when specific actions or functions can be performed as well as taboos warning them against carrying out daily activities which would be counter to the feng shui, such as on a certain", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215091, "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-2000", "page_number": 187, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "3\n\n144\n\nDoré, Le P. Henri : Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine : Hème Partie : Tome X: Shanghai: 1915: pp 831-832\n\n* See below under Yang Ren for an alternative to Yin Jiao as Commander of the Twelve Branches.\n\n5 No Cantonese devotee appears to have heard of Yin Jiao whereas Fukienese and Chinese of the Yangzi basin knew him as Marshal Yin rather than as Taisui.\n\n6 \"Werner E. T. C. in his Dictionary of Chinese Mythology: Kelly and Walsh: Shanghai: 1932 claimed that the Ministry consisted not of 60 but of 120 spirits as he included the deities controlling the months and days\n\n7 The cycle of sixty years was the basis for the Chinese lunar calendar with its twelve branches and ten stems. The sixtieth year of a man's life signified a turning point, this being the normal life span of a human being, and anyone who is fortunate enough to be older than sixty begins the round again. Other deities are entreated for a prolongation of life beyond the normal span.\n\n* DuBose, Rev. Hampden C: The Dragon, Image and Demon or The Three Religions of China: Partridge and Co.: London : 1886\n\n\"The combination of branch and stem provides the date, with the branches and stems depicting and belonging to one of the five primordial essences [water, wood, fire, metal and earth]. The concentric rings within the compass contain information on planetary movements, the ba gua and yin and yang; the five elements; the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, etc.\n\n10 The reason for this is simple. The basic Farmer's Almanac is produced and printed in Taiwan, a predominantly Fukienese community, but with copies sent to Hong Kong and elsewhere for local binding and distribution.\n\n\"According to religious specialists each of the stellar deities of the Twenty-eight Constellations has a title and a specific role, the latter differing depending upon the individual ritual specialists or books. In early China the visible stars were divided into 28 zones or constellations, with seven in each of the four directions. Other similar groups are the Thirty-six Stars of the Plough (T'ien-kang Hsing XXI) and the Seventy-two Stars of Evil Omen [Ti-sha Hsing]\n\n1. Each of the Thirty-six was a legendary hero recorded in one of the numerous stories of the deification of and struggles between the deities. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215121, "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-2000", "page_number": 217, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "174\n\nWangye literally means Prince; however, it is a not uncommon honorific used for deities within Fukienese and Chaozhou communities - often for protective deities.\n\n15 One has to bear in mind that the term Jiangjun, normally translated as general, used to be used to indicate a commander of an independent or subordinate force, often consisting of no more than one hundred men.\n\n16 According to some Li Fu Wangye was the spirit of a local sugar worker, Li Chaosheng who had returned to Earth to assist his former neighbours and had advised them of his euhemerisation in a dream.\n\n17. This is not confirmed in biographies.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215122, "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-2000", "page_number": 218, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "An image of Tang emperor Ming Huang on the main altar of a small popular religion temple in Seremban, central Malaysia. Beside him, on his right hand but out of the picture, is an image of Hou Tu Furen, an early Chinese mythical Spirit of Earth.\n\n175", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215141, "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-2000", "page_number": 237, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "PATRON DEITY OF PROSTITUTES\n\nZHU BAJIE\n\n豬八戒\n\n195\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nZhu Bajie is better known to Westerners as Piggy or Pigsy. He is one of the three assistants to the Tripitaka [the Chinese monk, Xuanzang] who, in 629 AD, together with the Monkey King [Qitian Dasheng], set out with the monk as his escort and aides on his hazardous and enthralling trek to India to collect the sacred Buddhist scriptures. These were the heroes of the romance the Journey to the West. He is also known by his name in religion - Zhu Wuneng - Seeker after Strength.\n\nIn the story Pigsy was the former Superintendent of Navigation of the Milky Way, banished to be reincarnated on Earth for assaulting one of the daughters of the Jade Emperor. Unfortunately a mistake was made and he entered the womb of a sow and was born half-man and half-pig. He was ordained a priest by Guan Yin and is portrayed on altars and in murals as a composite deity, a human with the head of a pig. He carries a five-toothed rake as a defensive weapon which he used to good effect during the long and arduous journey escorting the pilgrim monk, Xuanzang.\n\nAlthough he is usually regarded China-wide as the epitome of gluttony, in Taiwan he is also revered by prostitutes who call on his divine title Shoushou Ye, offering him incense and chants morning and evening whilst calling on him to bring them rich guests, foolish and witless, to be fleeced. An image, one of a number on loan from devotees, depicts him sitting holding a virtually nude woman in his arms alone on one of the side altars in the City God Temple in Chia I.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215212, "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-2000", "page_number": 308, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "272\n\non the events of that time\n\nIt seems that the Japanese authorities, strict though they were, did take the initiative which led to the provision of Model Village, and that it was they who had appointed contractors to carry out construction, and had allowed those involved to work on the project and to receive a payment in rice for a day's work.\n\nSuch payments were received on other projects of the time. One such was the construction of the new stormwater nullah that ran alongside Nga Tsin Wai - referred to in Patrick Hase's article on the village. Two ladies from Ngau Tau Kok village in East Kowloon, interviewed in 1967, had both worked as earth coolies on it, and also on the demolition of houses and the lowering of small hills for the extended airfield. Stones from the houses had been used to build the nullah. The two had carried the 100 piculs of soil and stones needed to earn one catty of rice, but said that men who could manage 140 or 150 piculs would earn proportionately more. The working day was 7 am until 12 noon, and then 1-5 pm.\n\nAt that time, rice was precious, and more useful than money. As one village woman told me (born 1880), 'you could buy 40 catties of rice for a dollar when I was young, but during the Occupation, one catty cost two dollars - if you could get it.' Another villager, one of the elders of Nga Tsin Wai, born in 1884, said that 'people would sell a whole roof of tiles and wooden beams to contractors, for two dollars.'\n\nI also spoke to two ladies at Chuk Yuen Village in 1963, who had described the removal of the large and old village of Po Kong, in its entirety, along with the nearby hamlets of Ta Kwu Ling, Shek Kwu Lung and Kak Hang, to make way - as they said - for a road and the airfield extension, adding that the Japanese built new stone houses for them and gave rice compensation instead of cash; which 'was much more useful to us at that time, when money was worth very little.'\n\nOther information was available that embellished the account of this difficult time. A man of 52, born at Ta Kwu Ling in 1915, told me in 1966 that part of the village was demolished, not for the airfield extension but because they were too close to it; the Japanese military authorities thinking that it might harbour guerillas who could damage", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215213, "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-2000", "page_number": 309, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "273\n\nits installations and parked aircraft. Around a hundred structures, all told, were demolished at Ta Kwu Ling, among them 14-15 large village houses. The people had been told to move out in October-November 1943, and were not offered houses in Model Village. In lieu of resettlement, they were given 75 catties of rice per adult and 35 catties for children - clearly with the intention of providing some assistance in an emergency for those concerned. Nonetheless this must have been a time of great hardship, with winter coming on. It was reported that the village headman, who had held office since about 1925, had died of starvation.\n\nThis removal, together with Shek Wu Lung and Tai Hom, was said by the Nga Tsin Wai elders to have been unnecessary, caused by greedy Chinese contractors working for the Japanese authorities (and perhaps in collusion with some of their people), who had coveted the building materials and saw this opportunity to force people from their homes. According to the elders, the Chu lineage of Tai Hom were too frightened to object to the Japanese about this, for fear of being executed, and had said nothing.\n\nDuring the main clearance, the Nga Tsin Wai leaders averred, they had had the courage to visit the Japanese officer in charge, and even to call upon the military governor. He had asked them to return to their native village in China, whereupon they had explained that they had none, having lived in Kowloon for six hundred years. Thereafter, a diversion was arranged for the light rail track carrying the earth wagons used in the nullah excavation and construction, whereby the main village - but not its outlying houses and structures - was saved from the planned demolition.\n\nIf even part of the above can be believed - its reliability is surely strengthened by the fact that it came directly from the mouths of affected parties - it will be seen that the Japanese authorities were not completely ruthless in their behaviour towards those Kowloon villagers affected by the airfield extension, or in their treatment of those men, women and children who laboured on the various public works projects undertaken by them during their wartime occupation of Hong Kong.\n\nFinally, as reported by Patrick Hase, cash compensation was paid by the returned colonial administration after the war to those village", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215235, "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": 12, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT\n\nFRIENDS OF THE HKBRAS (UK) REPORT\n\nHON. AUDITOR'S REPORT\n\nHON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT\n\nARTICLES\n\npage\n\nxiv\n\nxxix\n\nxxxii\n\nxlii\n\nNorman Miners - Industrial Development in the Colonial Empire and the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa 1932...\n\n1\n\nGöran Aijmer - Earth God Wine and the Meeting of the Fluttering Butterflies: Local Customs of Early Spring in Late Imperial Central China...\n\n25\n\nKeith Stevens - The Popular Religion Gods of the Hainanese ...........\n\n43\n\nValery Garrett - Chinese Baby Carriers: A Hong Kong Tradition Now Gone\n\n95\n\nAnthony Hedley and Alfred Lin - The Lugard Tribute...............\n\n109\n\nCésar Guillén-Nuñez - The Façade of St. Paul's, Macao: A Retable-Façade?\n\nRobert Nield - Bhutan - Why Not?\n\n131\n\n189\n\nKo Tim-keung - A Review of Development of Cemeteries in Hong: 1841-1950........\n\n241\n\nLouis Ha and Dan Waters - Hong Kong's Lighthouses and the Men Who Manned Them\n\n281\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nKeith Stevens - A Tale of Sour Grapes: Messrs. Little and Mesny and the First Steamship Through the Yangzi Gorges\n\n321\n\nix", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215300, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "25\n\nEARTH GOD WINE AND THE MEETING OF THE FLUTTERING BUTTERFLIES LOCAL CUSTOMS OF EARLY SPRING IN LATE IMPERIAL CENTRAL CHINA\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nAs spring was approaching in the lake lands of Southern Hubei and Northern Hunan, people became increasingly involved in the new agricultural season. Once snow and frosts were part of the past, the new season for rice began. In the first place the irrigated seedbeds were prepared to receive the sowing of the grain, and later to see the sprouting of the first thick green carpet of the young shoots. Irrigation systems had to be looked over and repaired in anticipation of the period when the large paddy fields were to be set under water.\n\nAfter the celebration of the Lantern Festival as the finale of the New Year season, on the fifteenth of the first moon of the lunar year, there was a bit of a ritual slack season. The advantage of this for people was that there was then a period of uninterrupted time necessary for the urgent agricultural spring tasks. What followed after New Year was a string of smaller seasonal events, somewhat more modest than the big cardinal festivals. Even so these celebrations were certainly of some importance - at least they provided a few short but joyful breaks in days otherwise filled with heavy loads of work. In this essay I shall examine two relatively minor festive events which were celebrated in the early spring, in the second lunary of the year or around that time.\n\nWe must remember that Chinese reckoning of time in Imperial days was structured by two main and different annual calendars. One was based on the phases of the moon and comprised twelve lunaries. The other took account of the annual behaviour of the sun and contained twenty-four solar phases. The lunar dates varied in terms of the sun calendar, but it was the latter which gave the pragmatic landmarks in terms of seasonal weather and rural tasks for the countryman, whereas various celebrations of agricultural achievements and social events were held in accordance with the moon year. The lunar New Year could fall any time from the twenty-first of January to the nineteenth of February, Gregorian reckoning, and thus varied a great deal from year to year in\n\nI have dealt with these elsewhere: Aijmer 1964; 1968; 1979; 1991; 2002.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215303, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "28\n\nsparse evidence we have from local chronicles.\n\nIn Gong'an Magistracy (in Jingzhou Prefecture) people hoped for rain on the She day as this was a good omen. In the same vein we find a note from Tongshan Magistracy (in Wuchang Prefecture) to the effect that if it rained on the She Day, it was said: 'She Weng yu rain of the Worthy She'. A rustic proverb had it that 'She Gong Mr. She'--and 'She Mu Lady She'--'do not drink old water'. The metaphor here was that the fresh water of the spring rains was drunk by the earth. It is interesting to note that the proverb insists on a female counterpart to the She.\n\nIn Yingshan Magistracy there were si offerings to the She; these were spoken of as qi gu 'prayer for grain'. Similar offerings, but this time described as jiao libations, occurred here in Yingshan on the third day of the third moon, later on in the spring. On the She Day we encounter offerings taking place in Zhongxiang Magistracy, the capital in Anlu Prefecture, and here we get some more detail concerning the rustic population. The chronicler describes how the celebration engaged wu and xi male and female sorcerers-who appeared with drums and singing, thus welcoming the shen spirits. With 'arms joined' they were stamping on the ground, all this being a ge jie ji 'an offering of rhythmic singing'. Everyone drank She wine and shared She meat. The wine was supposed to cure deafness. Sacrificial meats (sheng) and sweet wine (li) are also mentioned from Wuling Magistracy, the capital of Changde Prefecture. From Jiangling Magistracy, the capital of Jingzhou Prefecture, we get a description of She fan 'She food' -which was a mixture of pork and mutton put inside a pumpkin. The magistracy of Suiyang is said to have been a place where four neighbourhoods combined to ji offer to ben jing She shen 'the local She spirit'. People shared out delicacies\n\n6 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1193: 風俗考 3b.\n\n7 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 6ab.\n\n8 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1166: 風俗考 4a.\n\n9 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1166: 風俗考 4ab.\n\n10 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a.\n\n11 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1259: 風俗考 1b.\n\n12 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1193: 風俗考 2a.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215304, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "and sacrificial meats (zuo IF) that had been used in the ji sacrifice.13\n\n29\n\nThe oldest source we have is from the Liang dynasty (502-556 AD), a thematically organized chronicle accounting for the customs of the lake land in Central China, called Jing Chu sui shi ji, or Records of the Seasons in Jing and Chu. It is very apparent that this text has had an influence on later scribes. For instance, it is quite clear that the compiler of the record of Suiyang has copied from the old Records the note saying that four neighbourhoods combined to celebrate the She. This description of social organization might not have been very accurate in late Imperial times, nor can we assume that it was anything more than an idealized picture in early medieval China. Perhaps it only means that a vicinage had one centrally located She altar. The Liang source also mentions sacrificial meats and strong wine and in this there may have been more of a true historical continuity through the centuries.14\n\n16\n\nThe chronicler of Wuling magistracy juxtaposes the celebrations of the She with the vernal breaking of the earth in agriculture and the inundation of the fields in the second moon.15 Some names also indicate an agricultural connection: In Yingshan the offerings to the She were called qi gu 'prayers for grain'16 and the day seems to have been known as gu ri—'grain day'. As was noted above, the peasants of Suiyang were on this day forecasting inundations, droughts and tao rice growing in the fields'. There was a saying here: She zhong xin *£*—'to sow the new [crop] at She [time]'. There can be no doubt that the day of the She and its celebrations were connected with the new agricultural season, the breaking of the earth in the spring and the sowing of the rice grains.\n\nIn a sense the Li Chun festival was a precursor of the She Day. The latter was officially calculated on the basis of the occurrence of the former. Both festivals were concerned with the breaking of earth, but it seems clear from this juxtaposition that Li Chun was more 'prospecting' and anticipating—an official recognition of the arrival of\n\n13 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1120:風俗考4b.\n\n14 On the Jing Chu sui shi ji, see Turban 1971: 3-46.\n\n15 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1259:風俗考1b.\n\n16 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1166: 風俗考4a.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215305, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "30\n\nspring within the wider New Year duration.\" At Li Chun ritual acts signalled various agricultural tasks. The She festival was more timely in relation to actual agrarian operations starting up at this season, but rituals did not directly depict the cultivation of the earth.\n\nShamanistic activities were common at several ritual celebrations in the area under scrutiny here. A chronicler from Hanzhou Magistracy in Hanyang Prefecture says that the people along the Jiang and the Han18 love wu sorcerers and regard demons as important.19 Singing, dancing and drumming wu and xi contributed to the efficacy of the rituals in that they summoned the shen spirits. The mention here of both wu and xi is best understood as indicating that the shamanistic acts were performed by officiants recruited from both genders—but we cannot be sure. What kind of shen spirits were invited by their activities is, again, not clear. If in the singular, the word might refer to the She, if in the plural, it might have been spirits in general, or, perhaps, the spirits of the dead. We have seen above that sometimes the She was connoted with death and the dead. Invoking and inviting the dead—should that be the correct understanding—would then, no doubt, have had further agricultural connotations.20\n\nWhat speaks in favour of the former interpretation is a note deriving from Yiyang Magistracy (in Changsha Prefecture), but which actually refers to a practice of the third day of the third moon, a day called Shang Si E or 'Upper Si'. On this day there were splendid processions in the country villages by the She altars where people sacrificed to the du shen 'the earth spirit(s)'. Droning drums were prominent instruments in these processions. This was called qi nian—'to pray for the year'.21 A similar report, already mentioned and referring to the same day, is found in the records of Yingshan where it is said that people worshipped the She by jiao libations.\n\n17\n\nWe may note that there was another occasion for celebrating the\n\nAijmer 2002, Chapter. 15.\n\n18 Hanzhou is situated by the confluence of the River Yangzi (the Jiang) and the River Han.\n\n19 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1130: 風俗考 1b\n\n20 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a\n\n21 益陽縣志. 1874. 卷 24b.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215306, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "31\n\nShe further on in the year, by the summer solstice, when people in Changsha Prefecture sacrificed to the She and provided the earth god with wine.”\n\nIn some places the She Day was also associated with visits to the graves of the dead. This was so already in the early Liang dynasty in the sixth century when the chronicler notes that there were sheng-meat-offerings to the dead on the She Day.23 A much later account describing Yuanjiang Magistracy in Changde Prefecture tells us that on the She Day and earlier, people suspended paper—possibly ritual paper stripes or paper money—on the graves and swept them. There was a maxim saying: 'For new graves, one should not pass the She; for old graves one suspends [paper] when thirty nights have passed'.24 In Wuchang Magistracy people sacrificed fresh things on the graves on the She Day of the second moon.25 In Suiyang the graves were decorated with twigs and banners on the She Day and there were ji offerings.26\n\nIn an earlier essay27 I have discussed the visit to graves at springtime in the lake area of southern Hubei and northern Hunan. Grave rituals were most prominent in the solar period of Qing Ming and seem to have been one of the cardinal activities in a grand exchange of visits and counter-visits between the dead and their living descendants. This ritual scheme of reciprocity over time was parallel with the agricultural year and integrated into the major structure of the annual progression of festivals. The graves were swept and cleaned, which paralleled the weeding and preparation of the soil in the rice nurseries. There were offerings to the dead of food, generally in some sort of commensality. There was a gift-giving combined with the insertion of bamboo branches with hanging paper money on top of the graves. These bamboos can be seen in the area even today. Gifts corresponded to sowing—the dead and the soil were closely related in iconic symbolism. These visits to the graves and the dead were later rewarded by counter-visits of the ancestors to their living progeny, which occurred on the\n\n22 古今圖書集成. 1888. II, 1142: 山川考 8b.\n\n23 沅江縣志: 1807-19, 卷18, 風俗 2b.\n\n24 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 2b.\n\n25 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 4b.\n\n26 Aijmer 1979.\n\n27 Aijmer 1964.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215307, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "32\n\nDragon Boat Festival when in various ways the dead helped to secure the successful transplantation of rice.28\n\nIn that essay on the cult of the ancestors in spring time I also addressed briefly the fact that in late Imperial days we find these grave visits dispersed in time, occurring on several dates in the progression of the spring, even if the day and the period of Qing Ming seem to have dominated. Taking account of the fact that Qing Ming and worship at the graves were phenomena not mentioned in our earliest source from the sixth century, I proposed that perhaps grave worship was introduced into this area as part of an ongoing sinicization process in the course of a somewhat later phase in history. If this was so, there may have been some local options as to when the graves should be visited.\n\nThe She Day was a day of agricultural renewal with offerings on the altar of the She. Like the dead, the She was a chthonic phenomenon. Both god and ancestors were active forces beneficial to the sowing of rice. How the dead actually related to the She—directly or indirectly—is not known for this area. The spread over time of vernal worship at the graves may best be seen as a set of local variations on a theme, the standard Qing Ming practice. These alternatives in terms of points in time do not seem to have posed a problem for the robust iconic architecture of the annual ritual cycle as a whole.\n\nThe She Day seems to have been one of merriment, parties al fresco, and social games and competitions. In Baling, the capital of Yuezhou Prefecture, there were competitions and people congregated to feast and drink.29 In Zhongxiang it was the custom to drink ‘earth god wine’ and eat ‘earth god meat.’30 This custom seems to indicate some commensality in which the sacrificial gifts—wine and meat—were shared between the donors and the divinity. No doubt such feasting was combined with the processions and the shamanistic performances mentioned earlier.\n\nReviewing our findings, we observe that the She Day was a day for celebrating the earth and praying for good results in agriculture. It\n\n28 古今圖書集成. 1888.VI, 1223:風俗考2a.\n\n29 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1142:風俗考2a.\n\n30 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1120:風俗考6ab.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215311, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "36\n\nhere were the main social occasions at this time of the year when both rustic and urban people tried to benefit from the seasonal life forces of Nature.\n\nThe She Day was a fairly complex affair when people visited what appears to have been special public altars, to worship by making offerings of meat and wine. What these altars devoted to the She were like, we cannot know for sure. Probably they were not too different from their latter day counterparts made of concrete.44 What deity was the She? Sometimes the She was combined with the Ji into a more complex phenomenon. Demotically it seems likely that this agricultural earth god was conceived as one being. Sometimes it was male and had a female companion, perhaps a wife.45 At this point it seems advisable to consult what Sinology has to say.\n\n46\n\nDerk Bodde's studies of festivals in early China are helpful here. He describes how in the days of the two consecutive Han dynasties (206 BC-AD 220) the She and the Ji were thought of as a pair presiding over the country with 'sub-versions' presiding in a corresponding way hierarchically in every single administrative unit in the realm. The cult of the She Ji was a State ritual at the centre of the polity, in the hands of the Emperor in the capital and handled by his administrators and officials in the periphery. This cult of the She, or She Ji, can be traced back to ancient and even into archaic China, and it appears to be a very old institution in Chinese public life. Even in the pre-Han period of contending fiefdoms under the umbrella of a ritually defined Imperial dominance, the She or She Ji was—if seen as in unity—a deity that not only had a reference to agriculture and harvests but, furthermore, to death; there was an intimate connection between the altar of the She and the Imperial ‘ancestral temple.' It has been noted that in these ancient offerings the presentations to the altar was of raw meat, whereas the ancestors received food that had been cooked.47\n\nLooking into medieval China we find that the worship of the She\n\n44 In this the She is strikingly similar to the Stove God, prominent at the celebration of Little New Year in the region; see Aijmer 2001: Chapter 4.\n\n45 Bodde 1975: 56, 252; see also Ch'ü 1972: 31.\n\n46 Chavannes 1969: 507, 516, 519.\n\n47 Yang 1969: 96-99; Faure 1986: 141.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215312, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "37\n\nor She Ji was still a political manifestation up through the Tang (618-907) and the Song (960-1260) dynasties, articulating neighbourhood and local belonging. In the Ming (1368-1644) period of early modern China, government regulations required that every hundred households maintain one She shrine and the ceremony conducted there should include the slaughtering of animals. It was then a day of feasting.4\n\n48\n\nThere is reason for caution here. While it cannot be denied that the ancient rituals of the remote Zhou dynasty share something with those performed more than two thousand years after in late Imperial China, the similarities must be deemed to be no more than a certain family resemblance. There is no reason to assume that the late counterparts of pristine sacrifices were caused by a true structural continuity through the ages. Forms are similar, so are the offerings of meat and wine, and a political component was permanently involved; but having recognized this, we must also remember all those agrarian, religious, social and political changes that have had such a profound impact on life in China in these millennia. Whatever ideas and notions that informed the rites of ancient and early China, these must have been modified and transformed in the course of these two thousand years of history. Still, these resemblances over the millennia continue to fascinate.\n\nThe observation that the archaic links between the cults of the She and the dead re-appear in contemporary rituals in southern China, invites some further speculation. If death was an essential semantic component in the ancient notion of the She, a robust structure of meaning may well have survived—or been generated and generated again—despite ever changing symbolic environments; if it was true that the She could not be separated from the dead, or, possibly, was a manifestation of collective death, this close connotation [death<>vegetative force] may have been a presupposition for any ritual activity concerned with the earth and its generative power.\n\nWhat can be said here, in our present context, is that in some places in the central Yangzi valley there were visits to the graves of the dead in connection with the celebration of the She. The rituals to the agricultural god of the soil solicited blessings for the coming season by offerings and prayers which were sent in a downward direction to reach\n\n48 Aijmer 1991: 191-92.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215315, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "40\n\nto a state of the earth. The same paradox is also apparent in the celebration of the other seasonal festival, the Flower Dawn with its emphasis on an upward yang direction. The latter festival was observed according to the lunar calendar, and so relating to the main yin manifestation in Heaven, the moon. To intensify this sense of femininity it was celebrated under the full moon of the second lunary. The second moon, being of an even number, also has female associations.\n\nThe Flower Dawn day highlighted the awakening Nature and the end of the cold season's hibernation. It celebrated arousal and the drawing out of life from the underground in an upward direction. It was a day to be spent in the open with picnics in 'the wilderness', away from built-up areas. This was in contrast to the centripetal She celebrations, which were focused on one particular, centrally located altar. Flower Dawn was a day of contesting games, food, and kite flying. Female sexuality was one main theme of the festival, people following old conventions as to the coming of age of young women, their betrothals, and coming marriages.\n\nThe latter point is somewhat puzzling. The period for betrothals of young people, and also marriages, started generally at, or after, the Chong Yang festival on the ninth day of the ninth moon, the culmination of the wedding season being on New Year's Day and around that time. This autumnal period was the social season that followed after the harvest of rice when the fields were left fallow and the life force of Nature withdrew into the ground.49\n\nIt seems then as if the Flower Dawn was a spring alternative for the celebration of relations of affinity. Both She Day and Flower Dawn appeared in a period of the year that saw a seasonal near-balance of the cosmic forces of yin and yang—complete at the Spring Equinox.50 Yin had now started to wane and yang was growing into dominance. In the world of death, the deceased in their yin guise in the graves were growing in ritual importance, while the dead in their yang semblance, as celestial phenomena and manifest in the form of ancestral tablets, were coming out of focus. These two festivals each explored one dimension of Nature's seasonal balance:\n\n49 The autumnal equinox gave towards the end of the year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215321, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "46\n\nmuddy plats, eventually reached the first \"gun-house,\" as the crumbling fort was known to the Chinese. Finally, the passengers reached the Custom House and on to whatever accommodation they had reserved or could find in this very primitive European backwater.\n\nChinese immigrants from Hainan, along with those from Fujian, Guangxi, and Guangdong, flocked down to the foreign colonies of south-east Asia. Though integrated into the greater Han Chinese population of Singapore and Penang, as well as within towns and cities in North Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, even today Hainanese have remained in one or two linguistic pockets, such as is to be found in the area of Rengam and Kluang in southern Malaysia.\n\nOnly a few of all the Chinese temples visited in South-east Asia have been categorically identified as exclusively founded by Hainanese immigrants. Others, predominantly Hokkien, have a Hainanese altar stuck away in one corner, erected by the few local Hainanese, though two temples stood out, both in southern Malaysia, in which the images of the deities were predominantly uniquely Hainanese, though the temple custodians, the devotees, and the other images were all Hokkien. The picture gained from Hainanese staff and devotees in temples containing uniquely Hainanese images revealed the following minimum of temples being predominantly, if not entirely, Hainanese - six in Singapore, two in Penang, one in Kuala Lumpur, one in Seremban, and two in or near Kluang in southern Malaysia; on Sumatra, one in Medan and two in Palembang; on Java, one in Jakarta, one in Cirebon, and one in Semarang. There are several in Ha Tien in southern Cambodia and others scattered across southern Thailand. The strangest of all was the lone, small Hainanese temple on Bali.\n\nHainanese temple altars bear the usual accoutrements and have the same layout as altars in other Chinese communities, though, to generalise, with less clutter, particularly on altars in Hainanese Huiguan [community club houses]. Major China-wide deities, such as Guan Yin, Guan Gong, Hua Guang, City Gods, Earth Gods, and the Wealth Gods, are the same as in every Chinese community. There are also a number of predominantly Cantonese, Chaozhou, and even Minnan deities in many of the Hainanese temples both in Hainan and in South-east Asia, adopted from other immigrant ethnic groups, including Jinhua Niangniang, Caibo Xingjun, Fazhu Gong, Qi Tian Da Sheng, Longwei.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215323, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "48\n\nbetween Han ethnic groups but also both inter-ethnic fratricide and distrust, prevented legends of one ethnic group about their deities being passed to another. The stories of the minority Hainanese are therefore known to few non-Hainanese Chinese.\n\nFolk Religion Deities on Altars in Hainanese Community Temples\n\nDeities worshipped by Hainanese, both in their temples and on their household altars, can be categorised into eight groups:\n\nThe first are the deities revered China-wide such as Guan Yin, Guan Gong, the City God, the Earth God, the Gods and Goddesses of Climate and Time and the patrons of trades and professions. As these are not uniquely Hainanese deities I will not refer to them again.\n\nThere are two exceptions: the first is a deity identified as either the popular and frequently noted deity, the Thunder God, Lei Gong, or Lei Zu, the President of the Ministry of Thunder. He has been noted on two Singaporean Hainanese temple altars where he was only known as the Chief Leader of All the Heavens, Wantian Zhushi, His title was displayed on the temple list in two other Hainanese temples, one in Pontian in southern Malaysia, and the other near Kranji in northern Singapore. His image depicted him with his usual attributes a bird's beak, an axe or hammer held aloft and a chisel in his left hand. In one of the two temples, in Paya Lebar Crescent, he was riding either a tiger or a Qilin a mythical beast, and according to the temple custodian he is the only deity permitted to do so. He was identified by temple keepers as Lei Gong and his image co-located with that of Doutian Fushuai, said to be Lei Zu. However, in the other temple, at Rumba Bomba Circus, he was also portrayed astride what looks like an unusual tiger and here he was identified as Lei Zu.\n\nThe second is Ma Zu Qiong, the Respected Mother of the Hainanese3. Although Tian Hou, the patron goddess of seafarers along the entire coast of China, is revered throughout Hainanese communities, she is also known in a number of Hainanese temples by this unique title. The usual title by which Tian Hou is known in most Hainanese temples is Nantian Shengniang Tian Hou, The Saintly Lady of the Southern Heavens, 南天聖娘天后.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215355, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "80\n\n21 This is present day Maoming in western Guangdong province, not too far from the Liaozhou peninsula leading down to Hainan.\n\n22 A city in south eastern Guangdong province, half way between the Liaozhou peninsula and the Pearl River.\n\n23 Note that there are two different deities, Longwei Shenggong worshipped by the Hainanese and Longwei Shengwang worshipped by the Chaozhou people. The latter is, to all intents and purposes, a local Earth God.\n\n24\n\n25 Laomu, Old Mother [or Elderly Matron], is a title often mentioned in popular stories. In Xue Dingshan's Campaign to the West Laomu was Fan Lihua's teacher who, in eight years, taught her the art of moving mountains and raising armies from a handful of beans.\n\nAn elderly Chaozhou man in a Kowloon temple confided that Lishan [‘Fan Lihua' he called her] is a fictional character to support the story of the two generals Xue, and that much of their legends have little or no historical basis.\n\n26 Xue Dingshan's father, Xue Rengui, also a general, was an early Tang hero who not only also led an expedition to the west, he also served in the Korean campaign of Tang Tai Cong. Xue Dingshan, otherwise known as Xue Gang, is claimed to have saved the life of his emperor and is now a Fukienese cult deity, the face of whose image is characterised by extraordinary and colourful decorations.\n\n27 William Mesny relates that recumbent iron images of oxen were believed to be a protection from floods when these images were placed along the banks of river courses and lakes likely to overflow. He noticed several along the banks of the Grand Canal in 1874 and was told that they had been placed there by Liu Bowen Mesny's Chinese Miscellany: Vol. IV: Shanghai: 11 February 1905.\n\n28 As in Taipan, the Senior Boss.\n\n29 The shrine and its images disappeared, doubtless into a high rise flat, though it could have gone the way of so many minor cults and disappeared due, perhaps, to the aged temple keeper's demise.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215471, "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": 248, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "197\n\nover the Chela-la pass, 12,400 feet, a journey of about one-and-a-half hours. But it would not take us there today. Black ice was reported at the top, and so an alternative route was chosen to the south, following the river valleys. This took four hours, but it did offer one wonderful vista after another. Again, wherever we stopped, villagers were only too pleased to be photographed by these visitors from outer space, sometimes happily pausing in their backbreaking toil to pose for us.\n\nOn the outskirts of Haa we stopped for one of our frequent comfort stops. (One big advantage in travelling with a group whose average age is a tad over 21 is that there are many such stops.) There was a path down to the river, which we could see led to a large flat area, then back to the road about half-a-mile further on. Some of us took this, looking for photo opportunities. One such was a tiny mini-van (about a quarter the size of ours), which was surrounded by a cluster of red-robed monks. On closer inspection, we found that another monk was in the driving seat 'learning to drive,' as we were told. They too were more than happy to pose for a photograph. By way of thanks, one particularly English member of our group who was with me at the time, said in his pukka accent: 'Garden chair'. I was quiet for a while, but I had to ask him why on earth... In fact, what he was saying was the closest he could get to the Bhutanese word for 'thank you' (kadinche).\n\nJust then, a particularly bizarre sight met our eyes. On a tarmac helicopter-landing pad at the side of the river, a long table had been set out with 20 or 30 actual garden chairs. Must have been waiting for a reception for some visiting dignitary shortly to arrive by helicopter. A bit over the top, I thought to myself.\n\nHaa is Bhutan's main army base and was closed to visitors until December 2001. The Bhutanese Army, some 17,000 strong, is a regular army (there is no national service) and is trained and supplied by the Indian Army. In Haa township, the army was much in evidence, the many red corrugated iron roofs signifying buildings of military occupation. There was even a small putting green, presumably for the use of officers only.\n\nAlso much in evidence were Indians, and not just the military sort. There must be thousands of Indian contract labourers, living often in small huts by the roadside and doing such jobs as clearing landslips", "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": 215571, "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": 348, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "298\n\nmain lamp in the lighthouse could, allowing for the curvature of the earth, be seen for a distance of about 26 nautical miles (one nautical mile equals 1,852 metres). If because of fog, the light's visibility was reduced to less than two nautical miles, the fog horn system would switch on automatically. It could also be switched on by radio.\n\nAfter World War Two there was a hotline radio link to Cape Collinson, on Hong Kong Island, from where calls could be relayed elsewhere. In the years leading up to automation, in 1989, a direct exchange line telephone was provided in the air-conditioned communications tower to enable staff to keep in touch with their homes. No relatives or friends were allowed on the island. There was also an inter-communication system installed at Waglan so that staff could communicate between buildings on the island.\n\nCreature comforts and sustenance\n\nLike life for the man on the top of a tram in Wanchai, living conditions improved considerably over the years for lighthouse staff. In earlier years staff would stock up larders with enough food to last keepers for a full tour of duty. A few days later food would no longer be fresh. In more recent years they had refrigerators. In the first instance these were powered with kerosene. Electricity had to be used sparingly and was available from dusk to dawn when the beacon light was switched on.\n\n37\n\nStaples were different kinds of noodles, meat, vegetables and fish.3 The last was supplemented by delicious fish which they caught themselves, by line or cage. These were commonly nai mang ue and sek gau kong. It was much tastier than the salted fare which they ate in earlier days.\n\nLittle food was wasted. Waglan was a homely place. They kept pets. The half dozen or so cats finished off leftovers. In addition, some staff with green fingers would grow vegetables and bring shrubs and flowers back to the Island after shore leave, to plant and beautify their surroundings. In the days when the lighthouse was manned there was a bed of red-leaf flowers grown in the shape of 'WL,' standing for Waglan. As Superintendent of Lights, Yip Kin-sang, told the author, lighthouse keepers had a strong sense of belonging.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215574, "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": 351, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "301\n\na Petty Officer in the Hong Kong Royal Naval Reserve (Lack; 1999).# Deakin later became Assistant Superintendent of Lights, the Number Two to Terrence Vincent Courtney, an Australian. When the latter retired Deakin took over as Superintendent although he himself never actually served as a lighthouse keeper. He proved to be an excellent man-manager (according to Lack), and he significantly raised the efficiency and morale of the Lighthouse Section. He followed in Courtney's footsteps in improving the living conditions of lighthouse staff. He was described by Lack as the \"salt of the earth.” Attempts were made, it is understood, unsuccessfully, to get him a decoration in the Queen's Honours List for which competition was keen.\n\nAt one time Deakin started, so he told the author in 1990, to write a history of lighthouses. It was never finished. He was buried in the Chiu Yuen Eurasian Cemetery, at Mount Davis, in 1995. On his gravestone, in both English and Chinese, are the characters, ‘A fighter to the end.\" The author attended his funeral.\n\nAt one stage Deakin told the author, when Waglan Lighthouse was managed by the Chinese Maritime Customs from 1893 (which is the date on the lighthouse bell), it was manned by German keepers. That was before it was taken over by the British Colonial Government on 1st January 1901. After it was handed over to the British it soon became the practice for lighthouses to be manned by Eurasians, in the same way that railways in India were staffed to a large extent by Anglo-Indians.\n\nThe post of lighthouse keeper was seen rather as a middle management, technician-type of job, which offspring of, typically, British military fathers and Chinese mothers, could handle adequately. Indeed servicemen sometimes took their discharge in the Crown Colony. The job of lighthouse keeper required a reasonable amount of intelligence, integrity, attention to detail, personal discipline, self-sufficiency and the ability to live communally,\n\nUp to about 1960, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank recruited Eurasian and Portuguese as clerks, secretaries and typists. The Bank only recruited Chinese as janitors and for similar, low-level posts. Likewise, in those days Chinese were not employed as lighthouse keepers. In the late 1990s a (Chinese) member of staff of the Marine", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215595, "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": 372, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "322\n\nracing through the Gorges make this section difficult and dangerous both at low and high water. Chongqing, the chief commercial port of western China and an important distribution centre, was opened to foreign trade by an Additional Article [1890] to the Chefoo Agreement of 1876. This stretch also includes the River down to Chongqing from its junction with the Min River at Yibin [Suifu].\n\nThe fourth and final stretch, the Upper Yangzi of 1,600 miles, is torrential almost from its source in Eastern Tibet far to the west, down to Yibin. It has several major tributaries.\n\nWe, however, are interested in the Gorges. They have long been regarded by Chinese junkmen and especially foreigners who had travelled through them as passengers on river junks, as one of the most difficult stretches of river navigation on earth, with a current in places running at 13 knots.\n\nOur story concerns two British expatriates in China who, as far as we know, never met as they were of different social circles. One is Archibald Little, a British Shanghai merchant, married to a British lady and William Mesny, a struggling entrepreneur also in Shanghai but married to a Chinese. Paul King wrote that 'One of the foreign tea-tasters who each year visited Kiukiang [Jiujiang] was Archibald Little, who was never very successful in business but found himself in Yichang in the uphill work of establishing as a fact that the rapids in the upper reaches of the Yangtze could be negotiated by steam craft. In my [King] time the Navy was represented in Yichang by H.M.S. Kinsha - the famous pioneer merchant steamer on the Upper Yangtze owned and operated by the late Archibald Little.'\n\nThe first steamer to ascend the upper waters of the Great River, the Yangzi, through the Gorges above Yichang and as far as Chongqing during the low water season in the month of March 1898 was the 9-ton steam launch, Leechuen [Li Chuan], the property of Mr. Archibald Little who travelled aboard the steamer with his wife.\n\nArchibald John Little was born in London in 1838, and arrived in China in 1859 where he remained, apart from short visits back to Britain, until 1907 when he returned there and died the following year. He was a merchant, traveller and writer and is as well known to some as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215642, "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": 419, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "371\n\ndescriptions of it paint a vivid picture in inland China, of towns, villages, farming and husbandry at the end of the eighteenth century and put life to the many pictures and engravings of that period.\n\nIt was on this inland journey that Macartney was able to collect his tea plants. He says in his own words:\n\nI must not omit that the Viceroy (they had been joined by the Viceroy from Canton) observing our curiosity about everything relative to natural history, allowed us to collect seeds and fossils as we came along, and to take up several tea plants in a growing state with large balls of earth adhering to them, which tea plants I flatter myself I shall be able to transmit to Bengal, where I have no doubt that by the spirit of patriotism of its Government an effective cultivation of this valuable shrub will be undertaken and pursued with success.\n\nNo doubt the hard balls of earth were wrapped in the same casings of matting in which plants arrive from China to this day.\n\nSo far as opium is concerned, rather oddly, I cannot find that it came up in conversation at all although by then the illicit trade was well established and its use had been banned by Imperial edict some sixty years before.\n\nDr. Dinwiddie, who had accompanied the Embassy to Peking, took the plants to India on Jackall, together with tallow and varnish plants as well as some silkworm eggs, all of which were delivered to Dr. Roxburgh, superintendent of the East India Company's botanical gardens in Calcutta. Some years later indigenous tea plants were discovered growing in Assam and it is tea from these which seems more like the tea that we are now accustomed to drink. Whether there was any hybridisation between the two species I cannot say. Certainly Chinese tea retains its distinctive characteristics.\n\nThe journal of the Embassy's adventures in China is a fascinating and extraordinarily detailed account and description of a way of life and scenery which has largely disappeared. Present day Chengde is a shadow of the Jehol described by Macartney with pagodas, temples", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215644, "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": 421, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "373\n\nCOINCIDENCE?\n\nJENNIFER WELCH\n\nKeith Stevens sent me the following anecdote from amongst his collection of notes on Chinese religion:\n\nTao Bing Taizi - The Earth Soldier Prince\n\nThe story is that of a young man in his early twenties, with the surname Cai, who was killed by local people near Kaohsiung during a trip he made away from his home village of Hu Tung in Yun Lin county in central Taiwan. He was buried where he fell, but later his family, who regarded him as a heroic youth, came and took some soil from his grave, and built a shrine in his honour back in Hu Tung. As time passed people who prayed at his shrine found that their prayers were answered, and as a result of this success he became a popular local god.\n\nIn the late 1890s, after the occupation of Taiwan by the Japanese, a troop of Japanese cavalry passed through the village of Hu Tung destroying crops as they went. The villagers were angry but too afraid to protest. The cavalry tethered their horses to the shrine, whereupon one of the horses neighed and dropped dead. This was seen as Cai punishing the Japanese both for destroying the crops and for desecrating his shrine by using it as a tethering post. The villagers considered that Cai had meted out retribution to the Japanese in this way so that they could not blame the villagers for the mishap.\n\nA few days after receiving this tale I took some visitors to see Beverley Minster, our local cathedral, founded before 1066, but a wonderful example of medieval architecture. On entering, an official offered to give us a guided tour, which included the 14th century stone canopied tomb of Lady Eleanor Percy, a truly beautiful work of exquisitely carved fruit, leaves, angel figures and symbolic beasts, where the central position is filled with a representation of the Deity raising the soul of a woman from her winding sheet. Our guide informed us that this was a rare surviving example of such medieval art in England, as in other churches similar depictions of Christ had been destroyed, not during the Reformation, but a century later by the Puritan Roundheads. We inquired how this carving had survived, and this is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215854, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "86\n\n月4五日至八日退必\n\n五日日夜间代三和猪背文化代表可忍素神\n\n人人\n\n新车\n\n76\n\n焦\n\nPlate 6, Invitation (part) to attend the annual ceremony at the Peel Street, Central, earth god altar, 1974,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215879, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "111\n\n(a) a satellite pentagonal pillbox (shown in a government 1:600 survey plan of 1963 but not in any 1:1000 plan); and\n\n(b) the inscription “REN 30th Coy 1914\", first reported by Dr. Solomon Bard.\n\nFrom old aerial photos and survey plan, an earth mound that looks like a double circular earth gun revetment for a heavy 75mm or 105mm AA gun (United States War Department 1944: pp. 110-116) could be found along the watershed to the northwest of the redoubt. It was to the southeast of the ruins of a bunker, which has been incorporated into the Chinese Permanent Cemetery. This revetment-like earth structure was destroyed when the Cemetery was built. The revetment was huge and was almost as large as the 9.2 gun emplacement in Gough Battery. The slopes below the redoubt have several tunnels, probably also of Japanese occupation origin. One is found above the steps of the Lord Wilson Trail leading to the Chinese Cemetery and another near the ruins of a bunker below the northern rock face of Devil's Peak. We leave the nature of the circular earth mound and the tunnels to experts on military engineering.\n\nThe 196m site\n\nFurther down the ridge, at 196m above the mean Principal Datum (mPD), lies the '196m site.' The site is connected with the redoubt by a firing trench built of stones, which is full of dense undergrowth.\n\nThis levelled site is small in size with the ruins of a concrete structure (approximately 40 square metres on plan) that is believed to be an observation post or machine gun emplacement that covers both the redoubt and Gough Battery. Only lower parts of some of the wall structures have remained on site. But apparently, there is no immediate danger to visitors. An area bigger than the 196m site itself uphill has been formed and developed into a plant nursery, probably by morning hikers. Such unauthorised site formation and planting work has not only created visual blight, but has also accelerated the soil erosion process by removing the top soil and the natural vegetation (Figure 6).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215903, "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": 202, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "March 1989\n\nJuly 1990 August 1990\n\n15 January 1995\n\nNovember 1995\n\nMarch 1998\n\n12 August 1999\n\n16 August 1999\n\nNovember 1999\n\nNovember 1999\n\nDecember 1999\n\nPublication of the Metroplan Landscape Strategy for the Urban Fringe and Coastal Areas by the Strategic Planning Unit, Lands and Works Branch. Appendix 8 shows a Lei Yue Mun Rural Park proposal.\n\nPublication of a revised 1:1000 Survey Plan 11-SE-4D.\n\nPublication of a revised 1:1000 Survey Plan 11-SE-9B.\n\nThe earth breaking for the construction of the Wilson Trail. Devil's Peak (Gough Battery) became included as part of Section 3 (Lam Tin (formerly Ham Tin) to Cheng Lan Shue) of the Trail.\n\nPublication of a revised 1:1000 Survey Plan 11-SE-4D.\n\nPublication of a revised 1:1000 Survey Plan 11-SE-9B.\n\nCirculation of Kwun Tong District Board 1999 Environmental and Health Improvement Committee Paper No. 29/99.\n\nTechnical Report 3 dated 16 August 1999 by Environmental Resources Management Study on Village Improvement and Upgrading of Lei Yue Mun Area, Agreement No. CE108/98 states the \"much of the fortifications still survive and provides opportunities for tourist development.\"\n\nPublication of a revised 1:1000 Survey Plan 11-SE-9B.\n\nPublication of a revised 1:1000 Survey Plan 11-SE-4D.\n\nA pedestrian link was proposed in Reprovisioning Working Paper December 1999 in Study On Minimization of the Impacts of Western Coast Road on Lei Yue Mun Village (commissioned by the Territory Development Department) to connect the Pottinger Battery and Lei Yue Mun Point.\n\nA tunnel option was proposed as an alternative to the Western Coast Road to Tseung Kwan O New Town in Feasibility Study on the Alternative Alignment for the Western Coast Road, Tseung Kwan O Final Report-Executive Summary November 1999 Agreement No. CE46/96 by Maunsell Consultants Asia Ltd (in association with Environment Resources Management Hong Kong Ltd; Hassel Ltd and MVA Asia Ltd.).\n\nSurvey Plan 11-SE-4D Survey Plan 11-SE-9B\n\nSurvey Plan 11-SE-9B\n\nSurvey Plan 11-SE-4D Kwun Tong District Board (1999)\n\nERM, 1999, p.94\n\nSurvey Plan 11-SE-4D\n\nSurvey Plan 11-SE-9B Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong Limited 1999\n\nMaunsell Consultants Asia Ltd 1999\n\n135", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215971, "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": 270, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "204\n\nspontaneous concern for people, first assessing their willingness to enter sincerely into the Christian life he advocated, and then following up those who manifested sincere intentions. Like the accounts of many evangelists, Ch'ea emphasized the most notable and \"promising\" encounters. There was the 50 year old teacher Cheong of the little village of Mooey Lung (M. Méilóng) near the foot of Mount Lo-fow, who after hearing Ch'ea for a full day and night responded, \"Your coming has been my salvation!” In another case near the town of Kum Ky Ngan (P. Jīnjī yăn, literally \"The Eye of the Golden Rooster\") Ch'ëa met a man named Tsü Moo Sow, heading toward a local temple with a large meat offering to present in sacrifice. Noting both the poverty of the place and the man, Ch'ea engaged Tsü in conversation, moving him into a \"wayside tea room\" to convince him that he was \"not to worship idols, but to worship God the Lord of heaven and earth and all things.\" Responding positively to Ch'ëa's instruction, Tsü opened his home, treating him with \"respect and kindness,\" claiming that \"Heaven had sent me there to save him.\"59 These stories one would expect from an evangelist who himself had faced decisive moments of transition, but they do not portray the full range of communicative means Ch'ea employed. Undoubtedly, some Poklo residents found his ways to be strangely attractive, while others grew to consider them as offensive and unacceptable.\n\nSeveral independent sources present pictures of Ch'ea's methods and lifestyle, making a partial reconstruction of his modus vivendi possible. Kot A-Yuk had first met Ch'ea during the eighth month of the lunar calendar, probably during the Chòngyáng festival, Ch'ea attending to his ancestors' gravesite like many other residents during that holiday.60 Since this was fully expected for all village residents, something else had obviously caught Kot's attention. At the gravesite Ch'ea had cut the grass following conditions of ritualized filial duty, but had brought \"neither meat nor wine for sacrifice.\" Even more curious were the dozen people who were sitting on the grass, listening to Ch'ëa speak about numerous religious themes. But after talking at some length Ch'ea mentioned that he had learned these things from \"divine books,\" and so some who had been listening took Ch'ea to be \"mad\"\n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215992, "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": 291, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "225\n\nA recently prepared description of the area from local sources can be seen, along with fuller descriptions of this famous mountain and its history, in Bóluóxiàn zhì (The Gazette of Bóluó District) (Bóluó: Guangdong Provincial Cultural History Research Library, 1988), pp. 69-79, 325-329.\n\n16. These are drawn from Legge's notes in \"Journal of a Missionary Tour\" and materials from 19th century gazettes (fangzhi) from the Nanbai district of western Guangdong province.\n\nA description of the refurbishing and building up of the temple complex dedicated to Master Kong in Poklo, initiated in the seventh year of the Kangxi emperor (1668) is rehearsed in Bóluóxiàn zhì, pp. 315-316. In the third year of the Qiánlóng reign (1738) yellow tiles were added to the roof reflecting imperial honour and a decorative sign was added to the main temple, honouring Master Kong as one yǔ Tiān Dì gēn (“a Partner with Heaven and Earth\"), a phrase from the Zhongyong which Legge translated \"[Confucius] may with Heaven and Earth form a ternion\" (Ch. 22, CC1, p. 416). Three other similarly adulatory signs were added in the fourth year of the Jiaqing emperor (1800), during the Dàoguāng reign (1821-1850), and the second year of the Tongzhi reign (1863).\n\n17. See Chinese Classics, Volume 1 (CC1), prolegomena, pp. 112-127. The following footnote (p. 113) provides the necessary details for understanding the layout and furnishing of the \"temples (diàn) of Confucius\". [Transliterations replace characters in the original text, which can be looked up in the attached glossary. Here I use standard Pinyin for the sake of easier identification.]\n\nThe principal hall, called Dàchéng diàn, or 'Hall of the Great and Complete One,' is that in which is his own statue or the tablet of his spirit, having on each side of it, within a screen, the statues, or tablets, of his 'four Assessors.' On the east and west, along the walls of the same apartment, are the two xù, the places of the shí'èr zhé, or 'twelve Wise Ones,' those of his disciples, who, next to the 'Assessors,' are counted worthy of honour. Outside this apartment, and running in a line with the two xù, but along the external wall of the sacred inclosure, are the two wǔ, or side-galleries, which I have sometimes called the ranges of the outer court. In each there are sixty-four tablets of the disciples and other worthies, ... Behind this principal hall is the Chong shèng cídiàn, sacred to Confucius's ancestors, whose tables are in the centre, fronting the south, like that of Confucius....\n\nFrom a rubbing of a stele portraying the arrangement of the sacred tablets in the Beijing temple dedicated to Master Kong, it is seen that the \"four Assessors” are (from left to right when facing the Sage) Mèngzǐ (“Mencius,” c. 372 B.C. - c. 289 B.C.), Zēngzǐ (noted for his filial piety, 505 B.C. - 436 B.C.), Yánhuí (noted for his humane virtue, the Master's favourite student, 521 B.C. - 490 B.C.), and Zǐsī (a grandson of the Sage who edited and/or wrote the Zhongyóng, one of the four books Legge first called it the Doctrine of the Mean, but later gave it the more preferable title, the State of Equilibrium and Harmony (see CC1, p. 383).\n\n18. See Legge's descriptions of these ceremonies and some of their prayers to the Sage in CC1, prolegomena, pp. 91-93.\n\n19. According to the journal record, Legge and Ch'ea had preached in the grounds of the Confucian temple at Lung Ch'un on May 15, 1861.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216043, "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": 342, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "276\n\nThe fight between Lady White Snake and the monk Fa Hai leading to the flooding of Jin Shan\n\nA popular and well-known opera, Bai She Chuan, tells of Lady White Snake's fall from grace and of her eternal imprisonment under a pagoda. It begins with a small white snake which, having been both virtuous and devout for many thousands of years, became immortal and could change at will into the form of a beautiful young maiden. As a snake she had been saved from death by a compassionate man and would have to repay the debt at a future date. She discovered that the man, in his latest incarnation, was a young scholar, Xu Xian, living in Hangzhou and after recruiting as her maid a small blue snake who too could change into a young woman, she returned to Earth having been warned by the Xi Wangmu, the Goddess of the Western Heaven, not to abuse her magical powers.\n\nShe met the young scholar and they promptly fell in love. She explained that she was the daughter of a deceased army officer and lived in some style in a large house, produced by her magic, on the lakeside at Hangzhou. They were soon married and set up a herbalist store in which all three helped prepare and sell the medicines. White Snake enabled her husband's recipes gain widespread fame by the addition of a small addition of a magical powder and their fortunes were made. However, Xu began to be suspicious of the personality and origins of his wife and went to consult his old teacher, the Abbot Fa Hai at his monastery, Jin Shan Si, on the island in the Yangzi and sought his advice. The Abbot too was suspicious and gave Xu a potion to add to his wife's drink which would change any non-human back into its true self. To his horror his wife was revealed in her herpetological form and he, petrified, dropped dead with fright.\n\nThe power of the potion soon wore off and when White Snake found that her beloved husband was dead she went off to the Western Heaven to obtain herbs of resuscitation. Her husband, now recovered, was unable to get over his experience and lived a life of nervous apprehension. He returned to his teacher and explained what had happened. The Abbot explained that he too feared for Xu as both his wife and her maid must be transformed snakes who could do him great harm. Xu remained in the monastery in hiding. His anxious wife set out to find him and was met by the Abbot who ordered her away.\n\nShe", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216058, "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": 357, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "291\n\n+\n\nIn early December 1881 Hudson Taylor convened an informal missionary conference at Zhenjiang to discuss the crucial and imperative need to increase their numbers in order to accelerate the pace of converting China. This was an on-going problem raised and discussed by Protestant missionaries across China down the years. The staff and language students from the Missionary Language School at Anqing, another city on the Yangzi, were invited to attend the Zhenjiang conference as were missionaries of the American Episcopal Church.\n\nIn 1900 Mr Absolom Sydenstricker and his wife were both Presbyterian missionaries living in Zhenjiang, together with their daughter Pearl who was eight. During the first months of the Boxer troubles they refused to flee, then in July of that year when conditions had worsened they were compelled to escape to Shanghai, to return a year later. Life for a growing young woman was fairly circumscribed with the white population limited to the few in the consulates, other missionaries and a dozen or so men working with British and American companies. Pearl left in 1917 to marry Mr Buck, an American missionary and academic interested in China's rural economy, at Nan Suzhou in Anhui. Pearl's mother died in Zhenjiang several years later and was buried in what was then known as Zhenjiang's foreign cemetery. In 1920 Pearl's father sold their house and moved to Nanjing. Pearl Buck spent in all some forty-three years in China, and her writings brought Chinese social inter-relationships, especially those of the peasants, to western readers, possibly the first to achieve a world-wide circulation leading to many a westerner's first fascination about China. She wrote many a book and chaired many a public meeting telling people, mainly in the US, of the enduring spirit and resilience as well as the wretched lives lived by Chinese peasants and of the threat from Japanese Imperialism. Her best known works include The Good Earth, and a translation of the Shuihu Ji, 'All Men are Brothers', one of China's most popular pieces of literature. Her parents' family house in Zhenjiang, at the present day address of 6 Runzhou Shan Lu, is now one of the leading tourist attractions, for Americans in particular, despite being part of a semiconductor factory.\n\nIn May 1905 Hudson Taylor, freshly back from recuperation in Europe, stopped by Zhenjiang on his way to Changsha, where he visited the graves of Maria [his first wife who had died there in July 1870] and his children in the little cemetery among the hills. He, himself,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216167, "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": 466, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "400\n\nequivalent to the 9.2 inch guns at Mount Davis and Stanley Fort Batteries. The gun embrasure was bricked up as part of the 1974 conversion works and steel dead shoring erected to provide extra support for the overhanging cantilevered canopy. A new door opening was also formed in 1974 in the rear wall. The original door opening is still there and leads to a small rear compartment with three recesses in the wall noted on the P.W.D. drawing as 'voids' which would have been the expense magazines. The original rear entrance staircase to the gun emplacement was filled in with compacted earth and slabbed over with concrete.\n\nThe 1968 Hong Kong Government 1:1,000 scale Survey Sheet (Sheet Number 16-NW-2D) shows several small rectangular structures near the gun emplacement, but there is no indication what they were originally. One was probably a searchlight emplacement and another one near the cliff edge may have been a forward observation post. Another rectangle marked 'R' for ruin on the inland side of the hill may have been the main magazine as it appears to have what looks like a separate blast wall constructed along one side of it. Still yet another structure further down the hillside may have been a barrack block for the gun crew. All this is of course conjecture and independent verification and further research are needed.\n\nA report on the gun emplacement was prepared in 1999 by the writer and submitted to the Antiquities and Monuments Office for record purposes. It is however unlikely that the structure will be graded as a historical building or receive cultural heritage status. Due to its remoteness Tathong Point is not easily accessible and with its dangerous steep and rocky cliffs it is not recommended to encourage the general public to visit the site. Permission from the Marine Department would be necessary anyway.\n\nTo illustrate the hazards involved in visiting Tathong Point, an incident recorded in the Public Works Department file should be mentioned. The file contains a memorandum (Memo) from the Director of Marine to the Director of Public Works reporting that at 11:00 hours in September 1966 (exact date not given) the launch “Ming Kee” carrying 12 'light-house workers' capsized off the Tathong Point Light House. All were saved by a sampan which was fishing in the vicinity. Enquiries revealed that the workers were employed by the Fook Lee", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216387, "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": 146, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "96\n\non Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Social, Cultural and Economic Rights, in claiming that rights inhere in individuals and in communities to a fair allocation of the earth's resources and opportunities. This includes access to the legal system.\n\n6.1 Distributive Justice and a Fair Trial\n\nMany international conventions and other instruments emphasise the right to a fair trial, although they may differ in practice as to what such a trial might involve. Article 13 of the Agreement of March 2003 refers to the right to a fair and public hearing, to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, to engage a counsel of his or her choice, to have adequate time and facilities for preparation of defence, to have counsel provided if lacking means to pay for one, and to examine the witness against him or her.\n\nThe issue which caused the United Nations to withdraw from negotiations with the Royal Government was the question of a fair trial. The Khmer Rouge had particularly targeted intellectuals of various kinds, including lawyers. The courts formed in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime were created using judges with few if any legal qualifications. Prosecutors had even less legal formation.1 Besides the lack of trained personnel, participants and commentators have drawn attention to the lack of independence of judges and prosecutors, who are subjected to government interference.1 The recent history of Cambodian governments suggests that the concept of judicial independence is an alien concept: courts are expected to respond to government directives.1 Even in the absence of interference, the prosecutors may claim that they lack the funds to carry out investigations.\n\n6.2 Distributive Justice and Fair Trials\n\nDistributive justice requires that like cases should be treated alike. But the proposed tribunal for the Khmer Rouge is limited in jurisdiction to one period in Cambodia's history, the period of Democratic Kampuchea. Yet commentators have pointed out that there may have been breaches of law committed by other participants in the long-running wars which have affected Cambodia.12 If these are excluded from scrutiny, then the legal process becomes a kind of \"victor's justice\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]