[
    {
        "id": 204562,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1963",
        "page_number": 43,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "38 \n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH \n\nTibet, Paris, 1940, p. 161.) Actually from the last named (see p. 129, n. 5) and from other sources (such as S. Lévi, Le Népal, II, Paris, 1905, p. 148), we learn that writing was just then being introduced to Tibet. This is a far cry from China's experience of two millennia of writing (before A.D. 600), and the great urge for multiple copies of texts on the part of all sections of the literate community. \n\nThe first known example of wood-block printing came from Japan during the years 764-770. This is explained by the constant coming and going of Japanese students to T’ang China, and some scholars and Buddhist priests from the mainland to Japan. We learn, for example, of one Chinese scholar becoming head of the new University at Nara in 735, and of one Japanese who, after 19 years in the Chinese capital, returned to Nara, and in 735 became tutor to the empress Shotoku. It was she who ordered the production of one million three storey stupas, in each of which were to be placed six charms. (Only last spring I saw at Horyuji # 96 of these reliquaries, together with six copies of the printed dharani.) \n\nThe first recorded notice in China is dated 835. It tells of a memorial to the throne suggesting an edict forbidding the printing of calendars from wood-blocks. After this the notices and dated materials recently discovered multiply. I list some of these: \n\n1. Under the date of 839 Ennin mentions seeing one thousand copies of the Nirvana Sutra at Mount Wu-t'ai § J. This is so large a figure one may well wonder if they were printed. 2. It has been suggested that the Vinaya was first printed before 845. We know that the wood-blocks were burned in a fire at Ching-ai ssu in Loyang. So the poet Ssu-k’ung T'u (837-908) proposed the preparation of a fresh edition. \n\n3. Fan Shu, who flourished during the years 860-874, is authority for the statement that Ho-kan Chi T✯ who was active in Kiangsi ⇓ in 846-851, printed several thousand copies of a book concerned with alchemy. \n\n5 \n\n4. A beautiful copy of the Diamond Sutra &♬Į✯, printed 868 (it is 174 feet long and 10 inches wide) on white buff paper, was discovered in 1907 at Tunhuang and is now in the British Museum.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207028,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "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": 99,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "NOTES ON THE SOURCES OF DE MAILLA\n\n93\n\nof Chin Lü-hsiang ✯✯✯(1232-1303), and a supplementary section prepared by Shang Lu j (1415-86) and others under imperial order of 1476, was available to de Mailla in the edition of 1708.1 But it carries Chinese history only to the end of the Yuan dynasty, whereas the Histoire générale in its final form includes the Ming and Ch'ing periods to 1780, the 45th year of the Ch'ien-lung reign,\n\nSince de Mailla's manuscript was sent to France in 1737,2 where it remained unpublished for forty years, it is evident not only that the author relied on sources other than the T'ung-chien kang-mu to continue his record beyond the Yuan period, but also that the final chapters are not his at all. There is no secret involved in these facts, credit generally being given where due by the published Histoire générale. But the usual tendency to consider the matter as closed when one has attributed the work to de Mailla and indicated the T'ung-chien kang-mu as his source is misleading. Volumes I-IX represent an abridged translation of the Kang-mu; for Vol. X, which treats of the Ming period, four other Chinese sources were employed. They are indicated in the editor's footnote to Vol. X, pp. 1-3, as follows:\n\n+\nLes trois auteurs que le Père de Mailla a suivis sur ce qui concerne les MING, sont le docteur Kou-yng-tai, examinateur des lettrés du Tché-kiang, dont l'ouvrage, intitulé Ming-ssé-ki-sse-pen-mo ou Faits historiques de la dynastie des MING a été publié par Fou-y-tché, premier ministre de Chun-chi, empereur des TSING: ce ministre en faisant tant de cas, que non content d'en être l'éditeur, il y a ajouté une preface de sa façon. Le second auteur, d'après lequel le Père de Mailla a rédigé l'histoire des MING, est Tchu-tsing yen docteur du premier ordre & gouverneur de Nan-yang-fou du Ho-nan. Son ouvrage, fait sur le modèle du Tong-kien-kang-mu, a pour titre, Tong-kien-ming-ki-tsuen-tsai, c'est-à-dire, Suite complette de la dynastie des MING-Tchang-yn, president du tribunal des Rits & ministre d'état, le publia la trente-cinquième année du règne de Kang-hi. Enfin le troisième écrivain, que le Père de Mailla a consulté sur les MING est le fameux lettré Tchong-pé-king, qui vivoit sous cette dynastie, au temps qu'elle perdit le sceptre impérial. Son Ouvrage, intitulé Ming-ki-pien-nien; c'est-à-dire, Annales de la dynastie des MING, fut rendu public la quarante-septième année de Kang-hi, plus de cinquante ans après la mort de l'auteur.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214210,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "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": 68,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "31\n\none foot in the grave.' Such expressions could help to bring about death. Nevertheless, in Cantonese slang, a corpse is sometimes described as 'salt fish' (hàm yú), one imagines because of the smell. In the context of not joking about death Mary Rafferty, the then new chief executive at the Matilda Hospital, on the Peak in Hong Kong, seems to have put her foot in it when she told one of the Chinese doctors: 'I'm checking up on you to see if your patients are still alive' (Cheng, 1998). It did not seem to dawn on the good lady that you do not make such remarks in Chinese society.\n\nA retired English, Hong Kong government servant was, as his son described it, showing off to a lady friend how he could swim under water. He suffered a heart attack and died. 'What a wonderful way to go,' was how his middle-aged son, with a grin, described it. When the author related this event to a number of Chinese they were unable to appreciate the 'joke' in quite the same light.\n\nThe English sometimes play with sentences and the meaning of words, as may be seen from the joke quoted earlier in this paper, about Lewinsky, Gore and Clinton junk bonds. Similarly the Cantonese, with the homophonous nature of their language, play with similar tones with which two or more characters are pronounced (Smith, 1988:149). They love puns and double entendre, which Westerners do not always appreciate, in which their rich and complex language abounds (Bolton 1997:299). Chinese have a great deal of fun playing with homonyms in their conversations around dining tables. For example two pairs of Chinese characters, both pronounced faat choi but with slightly different tones, mean either 'hair vegetable' (fà cài) (a blue-green algae) or, alternatively, 'become wealthy' (fā cái). There are countless examples. Similarly, a lecturer who taught in the ‘electrical' engineering department of a college varied the tone of the word 'deen' (meaning electrical) so that it sounded as if he taught in the 'crazy' engineering department.\n\n... \n\nThe word for 'fry', in Cantonese, is pronounced chaau. But the same sound is also slang for 'speculate.' People joke about a certain Mr Wong, in Hong Kong, who changed his profession from cook to stockbroker. The pun is that he used to chaau food but now he chaaus shares!",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    }
]