[ { "id": 204342, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch \n\nRASHKB and author \n\n106 \n\nVol. 1 (1961) \n\nISSN 1991-7295 \n\nwhich include nearly all those not specifically exempted in the urban areas and the majority of better known temples outside the urban areas. The day to day operation of the Committee's temples is annually farmed out to the highest bidders, who collect as much as they can from the public on the sale of incense, fortune-telling tallies etc., and (as and when they can) by attempting to charge fees for admission. From these takings they have to pay quarterly rent, in advance, to the Committee and can pocket the rest. A keeper is not responsible for the maintenance of the building, but only for vacating it at the end of his twelve-month agreement, together with all furnishings in the same condition as he received them, normal wear and tear excepted.\n\nThe Chinese Temples Committee pools the rents from the temples it controls and is required by law to apply the proceeds first to the \"due observance of customary ceremonies\" (i.e., certain annual festivals) and second to the maintenance and repair of temple premises and property. They may then transfer surpluses from rents received and interest on invested capital to their General Chinese Charities Fund, from which they customarily make disbursements at their discretion to various Chinese charities in Hong Kong. In the year ending March 31, 1960 the Committee made grants totalling HK$304,270 in support of a wide field of educational, medical, cultural and welfare activities, after spending $75,800 on temple ceremonies and repairs.\n\nTheoretically, any Buddhist monastery or nunnery could be taken over by the Temples Committee in the same fashion as a temple to T'in Hau or T'aam Kung A. In practice,\n\nA however, this has never happened. Buddhist places of worship are registered under the Chinese Temples Ordinance (or, in a few cases, as societies or corporations), but are allowed to control their premises and administer their property without government interference. If one of them were to collect large sums from the public either in an improper manner or for improper purposes, it might well be taken over, and knowledge of this fact curbs the greed of the few \"slick operators\" in the Hong Kong Buddhist world. On the other hand, since most Buddhist institutions are away from centres of urban population and do not countenance the money-making practices of Chinese temples, their problem is a shortage of money rather than ill-gotten gains.\n\nNot only has there been little or no government interference in Buddhist activities, but there have been traditionally good relations between the Colonial Government, particularly the office of the Secretary of Chinese Affairs, and the leading Buddhist groups in the Colony. The two sides are in regular contact and cooperate on a number of welfare enterprises, as will become clear below.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204377, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 9, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "4\n\nKong by anyone whose work brings him or her into close contact with the people of the Colony. The Editorial Committee would like to point to one particular line of enquiry which might perhaps be followed up with profit by a few enthusiasts resident here. This is the study of traditional Chinese occupations which are still carried out in Hong Kong, but are in danger of dying out elsewhere. From both an historical and a sociological point of view the story-tellers, fortune-tellers, geomancers and their like ought to be studied and their work recorded before these professions vanish for ever. We have the worthwhile task of preserving in print (and on tape) much about the every day life of the Chinese people, but the time is short and we must hurry or it will be too late.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204460, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES \n\n81\n\nweddings and funerals, repairs to the ancestral temple, and so on. In \n\nAnother and less formal method of securing these aims is the setting aside of joss and oil fields, sometimes known by the obscure title of ching sheung 1, whose proceeds, again, are used for the proper observance of ancestral rites and other family needs.1 One need hardly emphasise the integrating effect of these land measures,\n\nTo understand the people and their outlook and background it is necessary to see to what sort of government they were accustomed.1 The government of the San On district was essentially Confucian, like that of every other administrative division; by which I mean that Confucian principles were ostensibly followed. This was sealed by the state worship of the sage. In every district city there was a temple to Confucius styled a man miu in which the District Magistrate, his senior staff and the local gentry paid the customary respects to the sage and his seventy-two disciples on his birthday (twenty-seventh day of the eighth moon) and at the spring worship or chun chai 1 in the second moon. The same thing happened at the prefectural and provincial capitals. At the head of the San On district was the District Magistrate whose superior was the prefect of the Kwang Chau prefecture which embraced at least five large districts. He was subordinate to the provincial governor and he in turn to the Viceroy of the two Kwang Provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. The nature and duties of the provincial officers had been established since the T'ang dynasty and for well over a millennium the pattern of government had been cast in an identical mould. The District Magistrate was usually a scholar who had taken one of the metropolitan examinations at Peking and he was always a native of another province than his native one, this being a long standing rule. He spent three or six years in one post and was then moved elsewhere, and was promoted in due course to be prefect or to higher office through merit, connections or good fortune. Some persons began and ended their official careers as District Magistrates.\n\n1\n\nThe District Magistrate's duties were many and his competence was most extensive. He was, in truth, the father-mother official1 of the people so called by them and also so styled in official documents because of his authority over all their affairs, criminal or civil. He certainly regarded himself as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204467, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "88 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\n36 \n\nDisturbances apart, the common people preferred to be left to themselves. They rarely had anything to do with the magistrate and his followers and preferred it that way. The magistrate, in his turn, was glad to leave routine affairs to the local tribunals. The price paid for these attitudes was the prevalence of crime. Poor communications were no help. The magistrate was often rendered powerless by unrest and disturbances of all kinds. Robberies and descents on shore by pirate gangs could take place with impunity since, even if help came, it invariably arrived far too late. Crime might eventually be punished but it was seldom prevented. No one would inform on disturbers of the peace for fear of reprisals or being entangled in the meshes of the law. Commenting on coastal piracy in 1897 Consul Brenan wrote, \"The boat people never attempt to effect an arrest; there would probably be bloodshed and they would then be involved in judicial proceedings almost as unpleasant for themselves as for the pirates. They are thankful enough if they can get rid of their dangerous passengers, and persuade them to go off and try their fortune elsewhere\"** \n\nHowever, it is only fair to state that the people of the district were also apt to create trouble among themselves, especially when circumstances conspired to make life difficult as in the dry season. This was especially true of the more closely populated agricultural areas, with villages in close proximity to each other, often sharing the same water supply for their fields and personal needs. The volatile Cantonese temperament is not suited to a cautious settlement of complicated personal problems: it is easier by far to fly off the handle and strike an attitude than to sit down and think. Hence difficult situations often were made intolerable by proximity and a quick temper, and clan fights were not uncommon, especially in the Yuen Long area. Hostilities between southern villages were well known at the time.** A tablet in the Tin Hau temple at Miu Kong, Tsuen Wan, refers to the death of seventeen male villagers by armed conflict between this village and Shing Mun Pat Heung in three years of intermit-tent strife which began in 1861. To these disturbances between the Punti villagers can be added a general antipathy between Hakka and Punti which sometimes erupted into violence and was still smouldering after the Hakka rebellion thirty years before.\"\" \n\n38", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204542, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 23, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "18\n\nLINDSAY RIDE\n\nDr. Robert Morrison. It is easily found, for if one continues straight on through the terrace from the end of the path one comes upon it amongst a group of altar tombs in the south-east corner of the cemetery. Morrison was a member of the London Missionary Society and was the first Protestant missionary in China, arriving from England via the States in 1807. He was a great Chinese scholar, wrote a Chinese grammar, compiled an English-Cantonese dictionary, and, along with a colleague, translated the whole Bible into Chinese. He became the indispensable interpreter and translator of the Select Committee of the East India Company, was taken by Lord Amherst in that capacity on his embassy to Peking in 1816, and was appointed in 1834 by Lord Napier to his staff when he assumed office in place of the East India Company in China. In 1825 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in virtue of his outstanding scholastic achievements, and was also a member of the society under whose auspices we meet tonight — the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nMorrison was buried alongside his wife, and next to her lies their very gifted son, John Robert Morrison, who died just as he was appointed the first Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong. Nearby lies another colleague from the same missionary society, Samuel Dyer, who did much to introduce metallic movable type to replace wooden blocks in the printing of Chinese books and tracts.\n\nAlong the eastern wall are to be found a number of members of East India Company families, and in the second row parallel to this wall is the second most frequently photographed memorial in the cemetery, that of Sir Winston Churchill's great-great-grand uncle, the 4th son of the 5th Duke of Marlborough, Lord Henry John Spencer Churchill, Captain, R.N. Near him lies a group of naval officers—Lieut. John Astell, Lieut. FitzGerald of the H.M.S. Modeste, and Captain Sir Humphrey le Fleming Senhouse, Senior Naval Officer in the China Seas during the attack on Canton in 1841.\n\nThe most conspicuous monument in the whole of the cemetery is a tall column near the north wall. It commemorates the life and death of Captain John Crockett who must have made a fortune when in command for some years of an opium storeship at Lintin. Nearby lies one of America's great ambassadors, Edmund Roberts, who served in the West Indies, South America, Muscat, Zanzibar,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204674, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n139\n\nHe was ahead of his time in assessing the value of what are now described as \"cultural relations\" between countries. In spite of all the resources at his command, however, he failed to arouse any interest in concluding a commercial treaty, or to put in train a sequence of events, which, had circumstances been different, might have led to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two greatest countries of the day in East and West to the undoubted benefit of both. In the event he came up against the extreme obscurantism of the Orient which until this twentieth century has been its own worst enemy.\n\nAlthough Macartney returned to England in 1794, no wholly satisfactory edition of his Journal has previously been available in print. We now have a virtually full transcription, and where irrelevant material has been omitted, the omissions and the reasons for them have been clearly stated. Scholars will welcome the well-documented notes designed for reference, and added at the end of the book, where they cannot distract the reader's attention from the main flow of the narrative. Only the maps are something of a disappointment.\n\n++\n\n\"While keeping in mind the needs of the specialist,\" says Mr. Cranmer-Byng in his Preface, \"I have edited this Journal in such a way that I hope the general reader will be able to enjoy it. . . . In this endeavour he has been entirely successful. Here is a work which will appeal to scholars, serve as an invaluable book of reference to present and future historians, and at the same time make entertaining reading for the layman who need possess no background knowledge of Chinese history or Anglo-Chinese relations to enjoy it to the full. Apart from its intrinsic worth, this book is an absorbing travel story. It was one of those supremely happy strokes of fortune all too rare in the unfolding of human affairs—that so able a man, gifted with incisive judgment and the power of descriptive writing, should visit China at the end of the finest hour in her long dynastic history.\n\nR. E. LAWRY.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204715, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 18, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "9\n\nJOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\nDuring the cessation of trade at Canton 1839\n\nThe manuscript of this Journal was discovered in the library of the Boston Athenaeum by Professor E. W. Ellsworth, who transcribed it and sent it as a contribution to the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Although it is not possible to claim categorically that it is by W. C. Hunter it is felt that it is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of this period and therefore worthy of publication in its own right.\n\nThe Introduction by Professor E. W. Ellsworth is followed by the transcription of the actual Journal with added notes contributed by Sir Lindsay T. Ride and J. L. Cranmer-Byng.\n\nINTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNAL\n\nE. W. ELLSWORTH\n\nWilliam C. Hunter of New York traveled to China in 1824. For the next two years as a necessary prelude to a business career he studied Chinese at the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca. Thereafter he was employed by Thomas H. Smith and Son until the company ceased operation in China in 1827. Hunter then returned to the United States but he had been fascinated with the Far East and went back within a few months. In 1829 he joined Russell and Company and remained with the firm in China for fourteen years.\n\nHunter's associates in this largest and most famous American trading association in China were A. A. Low of Salem, Massachusetts and later Brooklyn, New York, who diligently amassed a magnificent fortune and also Robert Bennett Forbes and Joseph Coolidge members of illustrious New England families.\n\nThe comfortable existence and, indeed, complacency of Hunter and the foreign commercial community at Canton was rudely shaken by developments in early 1839 which were the opening salvos of the Opium War. The longstanding problem of opium traffic in China arose with a new intensity that was sparked by dedicated reformers. Drug addiction was a fairly widespread vice compounded by economic overtones; foreigners", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205246, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 8, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "EDITORIAL\n\nIn the course of some remarks made at pp.1-4 of Volume 2 (1962) the then Editor wrote:\n\nwe hope to be able to print in future further articles and short notes about the life and customs of the people of Hong Kong by anyone whose work brings him or her into close contact with the people of the Colony. The Editorial Committee would like to point to one particular line of enquiry which might perhaps be followed up with profit by a few enthusiasts resident here. This is the study of traditional Chinese occupations which are still carried out in Hong Kong, but are in danger of dying out elsewhere. From both an historical and a sociological point of view the story-tellers, fortune-tellers, geomancers and their like ought to be studied and their work recorded before these professions vanish for ever. We have the worthwhile task of preserving in print (and on tape) much about the every day life of the Chinese people, but the time is short and we must hurry or it will be too late.\n\nFive years later this is as good a time and place as any to take stock of what has been done and what is being achieved in this direction.\n\nThe greatest single effort towards these ends has been made in the two Symposia held by the Branch in the autumns of 1964 and 1966, the first on Social Organisation in the New Territories and the second on Natural and Supernatural in Chinese Social Life: the Role of some Traditional Conceptions in Hong Kong Today. These two week-end events, with follow-up visits to places of special interest, were attended by well over a hundred visitors and guests on each occasion and the lectures given have been embodied in two separate publications issued by the Branch in 1965 and 1967.\n\nBesides these special efforts which have been due to the initiative of the Council we have been fortunate in receiving some items dealing with local subjects from contributors to the Journal. In this issue, in addition to reprinting two articles of historical", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205252, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 14, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "7\n\n15 & 16\n\nOctober\n\nSYMPOSIUM\n\nNatural and Supernatural in Chinese Social Life. The Role of some Traditional Conceptions in Hong Kong today\"\n\nK\n\n1. Some basic conceptions and their traditional relationship to society\"\n\nLC\n\n2.\n\nDr. Marjorie Topley\n\nGeomancy and the village: some first hand impressions\n\n*\n\nMr. James Hayes\n\n3. Chinese traditional medicine and contemporary Hong Kong \"\n\nDr. Gerald Choa\n\n4. \"The measurement of elapsed time in Hong Kong: the Chinese calendar; its uses and value\"\n\n5.\n\nCA\n\n6.\n\n*\n\nMr. K. M. A. Barnett\n\nSome ideas concerning food and diet among Hong Kong Chinese\n\nDr. Gerald Choa\n\nSome aspects of fortune-telling in Hong Kong\"\n\nDr. F. I. Tseung\n\n7. \"Ideas of mental disorder and their practical influence\n\nDr. P. M. Yap\n\nChinese temples in the local setting\"\n\nMr. James Hayes\n\n8.\n\n9.\n\nChinese occasional rites in Hong Kong\n\nDr. Marjorie Topley\n\n29 October\n\n10.\n\nGeneral question time on subjects arising generally during the Symposium. Panel Chairman: Mr. Timothy Birch\n\nVisit to temples and shrines of the Tai Ping Shan district", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205310, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY\n\nmember of the third minor lineage.\n\n65\n\nHe returned from the United States in 1941. After the Japanese Occupation, he took a job as a foreman in the nearby Ma On Shan Mining Company, from which he is now obtaining a pension. He still spends most of his time on the Company grounds playing mahjong and gossiping with his friends there. On his arrival from America, he constructed a large and spacious house on two floors and with a balcony.35 Rumour had it that he had lost some 10,000 dollars in the Canton Trust Bank crash in February 1965, but when I left the valley, there was no visible sign that his economic position had been altered or that his social prestige was affected thereby. He has one son on the island of Aruba, who is doing well. His brother, 75 years old, is the man who returned from Canada. His house is also good but is somewhat smaller than that of his younger brother. He is expressly of a conservative disposition; he clings to old ways and believes firmly in Fêng-shui. His economy is apparently very good. The son of this man is working in England.\n\nThe other New York man is 70 years old and belongs to the second minor lineage in the village. He possesses the biggest house in the valley and the surrounding areas. It was built forty years ago. He returned from America in 1959, but preferred then to reside in town. Later on, he moved back to his native village, the main reason being that all his friends in town went back to America. He is a sceptic, distrusts geomancy, and is passively in favour of modernization. He is supposed to have a considerable fortune by village standards. One of his two sons, also a former American resident, is now staying with his family in Tai Po Market. The younger son is working in England, and his family stays in the father's house.36\n\nThree other old men do not take part in the informal village council. One is the very old uncle of the Village Representative, whose affairs seem to be handled by the nephew. He is suspicious and successfully avoids anthropologists. Another is a man about 70 who is strikingly poor. He is an old emigrant too, but his country of destination was Singapore, and like many other sojourners in Singapore, he returned home as poor as when he went off. He is now trying to make a living by operating a traditional rowing ferry, taking villagers across Tide Cove in competition with the family who run the two mechanised boats.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205311, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "66\n\nL. G. AUMER\n\nand Hoklo fishermen operating from Ho Tung Lau across the water. He is mainly dependent on the remittances from his son working in England. It seems likely that his exclusion from the informal council is due to his low economic status. The third, 86 years old, is completely deaf and cannot communicate with people.\n\nOn the basis of the above we may generalize and say that during the transitional period the earlier, fairly non-differentiated, gerontocracy in Big Stream Village was transformed into a system, still gerontocratic in nature, but one marked by unequal distribution of power within the set of old men. Power was directly correlated with the accumulation of wealth which, in communities involved in processes of extension, was dependent on the economic opportunities pertaining to the destinations of the sojourners, and their fortune there.\n\nVII\n\nThe new phase in the extension initiated after the Pacific War took, as we have seen, a more systematic form as emigration was almost entirely concentrated on Great Britain. The difference in the new situation lies in the circumstance that the emigrants from the same village, although scattered over the whole of Britain, are still not too far away from each other to be able to keep in touch. Some of the 33 men from Big Stream Village working overseas, on an occasional visit at home, told me that villagers working in Britain in Chinese-style restaurants stay in London, Liverpool, and other places. They have frequent contacts and meet each other fairly often. Sometimes they even hold meetings.\n\nThe different solidarity groups within the major lineage at home mark off relations also in the overseas settlement. The village at home is now almost entirely dependent on the remittances flowing in from Britain. In this situation those working in Britain, who now constitute a kind of localized sub-group in the community, feel that political influence should go along with the flow of money. They are young and middle-aged men with a latent dissatisfaction with the passive conservatism of the old men still in power at home. The Village Representative is constantly blamed for his lack of interest in village affairs, supposedly reflected in his daily visits to his former place of work, the Ma On Shan Mine, where he spends his days at the mahjong table.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205321, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "76\n\nL. G. AIMER\n\nthe carrying and other heavy work, \"The men do not even know how to carry water\" and probably do not demand that the women give them lessons at it.' \n\nFrank 1925, p. 210f. Even among the Cantonese-speaking Punti population in Kwangtung, traditional women's participation in the work in the fields occurred; cf. Yang 1959, p. 21f. The notes above, however, are to be read as contrasts to Punti custom.\n\n35 Investments in house building on a large scale seem to be typical for all Chinese peasant communities with a marked inflow of external income. Generalizing from his experiences with three emigrant communities in Fukien and Kwangtung, Chen Ta writes:\n\n\"The most practical way to gratify their vanity is to build a house. Even when he does not contemplate a return in the immediate future, a Chinese emigrant who has made a fortune in the Nan Yang is quite likely to send a sum of money home for the express purpose of buying a new house\"; Chen 1939, p. 109.\n\nFrom another part of China, Francis Hsu notes that\n\n\"in this Yunnan community people became rich not through South-Seas emigration, but through tin mines and trading. As soon as a family becomes wealthy, it begins to build huge but largely unused houses ...\"; Hsu 1945, p. 48.\n\nBoth authors interpret house building as the symbolic aspect of the move from one social position to another by the sojourner in his home community, the big house being closely associated with gentry status. A comment on increasing house building in the New Territories in the beginning of this century is made in the N. T. Report 1899-1912, p. 56.\n\n36 Although these people have spent many years in English-speaking countries, none of them can converse in the English language. Also, this is largely true for the younger generation now residing in Britain. The Chinese emigrant is often sojourning in a Chinese enclave, the structure of which, in many important respects, is very different from that of his home community; it is still basically Chinese and offers social security in a foreign country. I have the impression that the sojourners have a fairly limited direct contact with the people of the country where they stay, especially if this is in Europe or America. Such contacts are also often highly formalized, of the type client-waiter relations in a restaurant. The surrounding social milieu is, I feel, experienced filtered through the culture of the enclave.\n\n37 In 1963 overseas remittances, in the form of postal and money orders cashed at the New Territories post offices, amounted to the value of HK$20,973,152. The corresponding figure for 1964 was HK$24,076,719; Hong Kong 1963, p. 60; Hong Kong 1964, p. 30. Considerable sums will also have been remitted through banks: these figures are not known. One item of information from the New Territories tells that one farmer annually receives about HK$1,500 from his two sons working in England; Topley 1964, p. 176. Ronald Ng (1965, p. 35) estimates the monthly remittances at £30, or HK$5,760 annually.\n\n38 This means that the daily income for a restaurant worker in Britain would amount to nearly HK$23. This may be compared to the daily wage of a worker in the New Territories which is about HK$10. Ng gives a similar figure for restaurant workers in the U.K.; Ng (1965, p. 35).\n\n39 The situation of the members of the overseas community in Britain could be compared to that of a villager of Big Stream Village working in a grocer's shop on the island of Aruba in the Netherlands West Indies. His salary there is 'over' US$100, i.e., at least HK$130, a month. The daily", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205325, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "80\n\nTHE CHINA COASTERS\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nJames Matheson sent his San Sebastian from Canton to ports in Fukien Province in 1820, to open up new markets for opium, and this is generally considered the pioneer voyage in the China coast trade. Although Matheson was Danish Consul at Canton at this time, and the San Sebastian sailed under Spanish colours, it is correct to describe this voyage as a British venture. The men who sailed the opium clippers, therefore, were the first 'China coasters', and since that time 'China coasters' have considered themselves a breed apart, distinct from the rest of the British Merchant Navy. The tradition of more liberal manning, of better pay, food, and conditions in general, pioneered by the opium clippers has continued to the present day.\n\nMany of the customs and practices of the lordly East Indiamen and of the Indian 'country ships' were inherited by the humbler 'China coasters'. The East Indiaman's captain could, and was expected to, make a fortune from carrying passengers and private cargo, in addition to the company's, and in self defence the latter stipulated a definite scale of perquisites for each member of the crew, from captain down to bosun and carpenter. Generous as this was, it was invariably exceeded. There was a much greater variety of 'pidgin' (=business) on the China coast, although it did not comprise such a high proportion of the China coaster's total earnings. As on the East India Company's ships, dabbling in certain types of 'pidgin' was considered legitimate and carried no moral stigma.\n\nThe most common and profitable pidgin came from deck passengers. It was on the emigrant runs to the Straits and Bangkok that this type of 'pidgin' was most prolific. I was introduced to this on my first ship on the coast, the Antung. The Antung was\n\nThe author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtse in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Two of his articles have been published previously in the Journal. \"European Navigation on the Yangtse\" in Vol. 3, 1963, and \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965.", "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": 205520, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "NOTES ON HONG KONG LIBRARIES\n\n57\n\n12th, 1852. This records a rearrangement of the books, and since “proper classification was out of the question” they were arranged according to size, so as to give a uniformity of appearance. A printed catalogue was produced under the direction of Mr. W. F. Bevan, assisted by Mr. A. Dixson; the latter was Secretary of the Library for the year reported, and was re-elected for 1852-53. There is no record of the total number of books, but during the year 75 titles in 133 volumes were added; the number of members rose from 63 to 66—against 19 new members, 10 had left the Colony, 1 died, and 5 withdrawn. The annual accounts3 balanced at $1,755.02, and the cash in hand at the end of the year was $37.11. The largest item of expenditure was \"Books, periodicals, and newspapers from England, $675.83.\" This did not include carriage, since it is stated that the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. kindly conveyed the monthly parcels free of charge. Rent of premises accounted for $355.00.\n\nThere had apparently been some criticism of the inaccessibility of the premises. Their exact location has not been ascertained, but an advertisement of 1852 gives Queen's Road as the address, whereas another in 1867 gives Wyndham Street. Whether the change was made in 1852 is not clear, but the proposed new premises would, according to the Committee's report, cost an additional $120 p.a. for rent. A search for subsequent annual reports should throw further light on this question of location. It would also be interesting if a copy of the printed catalogue of 1852 could be found.\n\nAlso in 1852, Dixson's Hongkong Recorder contains at least three advertisements relating to the Victoria Library. The first gives notice of a meeting of the committee to be held at 8 p.m. on 21st June, for the purpose of \"the selection of Books to be ordered by the next mail.\" The advertisement goes on to say that the monthly package by the last mail, which had been mislaid on board the P. & O. Co.'s receiving ship, had since been found, and as well as the usual magazines, certain books had arrived, including Gutzlaff's Life of Taou-kwang. It seems that there were at this time quite frequent purchases of books, since another notice in the Hongkong Recorder of 9th July announced the arrival of a further consignment, which included Davis's China during the War and since the Peace and Fortune's Tea Districts of China and India.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205538, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "ON FENGSHUI IN SOUTHEASTERN CHINA\n\n75\n\nphenomena. Fêngshui is a ritual language: a set of symbols and ways of combining these symbols into ritual statements. The fêngshui language is largely shared and understood by all Chinese and it provides an important instrument in Chinese society for a diffusion of local ideas into the larger society. The system of symbols can also be manipulated; individuals in the process of maximizing their resources employ special techniques — ‘geomancy’ — to discover and map localized symbolic sub-systems. Natural surroundings are explored in terms of fêngshui. The natural influences the interaction between the symbols can be played upon to the benefit of the player. This facet of fêngshui has recently been discussed in anthropological literature. The argument of this paper is concerned with its communicative aspect.\n\nThe fêngshui influences of a given ecological setting are of extreme importance to the people who are dependent on this setting. They are not static, but are changing in 60-year cycles. The fêngshui has a bearing not only on the particular individuals, but is equally important for the whole localized group. The effect of the influences can be measured in terms of good or bad fortune; the latter experienced in few sons, bad crops, and so on. In the same way as individuals are maximizing their resources, a whole community may try to manipulate the fêngshui. An example of this was to be found in Grass Field Village, further up the valley mentioned above. A most striking feature in the scenery there is one of the two peaks of the imposing mountain Maanshan (Ma On Shan) peeping up from behind the lower mountain ridges surrounding the village. Villagers explained that they always have a feeling that this mountain top is watching them from above. Apparently this watching implied a negative influence; people tried to check it by planting trees on the ridge in order to screen off the sinister mountain top. However, during the Japanese Occupation these trees were cut down, fuel being reckoned then as more essential than negative influences.\n\nOn the other hand, one seldom finds a general agreement as to the positive or negative character of the fêngshui influences in a certain setting. Poor people tend to regard the fêngshui of their locality as a 'killing breath', while better-off persons in the same settlement may say that it is after all ‘not too bad'. Fêngshui language, then, is used to express social and economic differentiation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205597, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "134 \n\nJ. NACKEN \n\nanswer the purpose. The diamond gimlet especially is a treasure which is not known in Europe. Besides glass and China this simple looking spectacled old man will repair foreign umbrellas, clasps, and hinges, and mark China-ware. Another carries women's toilet boxes with him, which he exchanges for old ones if they are past mending. A third sharpens razors and whets scissors; then come the travelling smith, the cobbler, the tinker; one who hoops tubs and basins, and finally the repairer of mats.\n\nIn passing we may notice the familiar warning cry of our chairbearers 'Mái 'pin* “step aside,” and of the coolies in carrying loads 'T'ai keuk† or 'Hoi lot “look to your footing,” \"clear the road!” and then pass on to hear a few cries in connection with idolatry. Here is the hawker of joss paper, of incense sticks and of candles; there is a table, a chair and a picture of a man's head; a shrewd looking Chinaman has a crowd of eager listeners gathered around him, whilst with his persuasive tongue he tells his fortune to the one who for a few cash has engaged his services. He is a sort of phrenologist. His brother fortune-teller who has his stand at the next corner pretends to read a future happy fate by the lines of his customer's hand. Sometimes you may see an elderly woman with an open umbrella pacing along the sidewalk. Sün meng§ she calls out into the houses. Her prophesying apparatus consists of two tortoise shells. A happy day for a family festival or a felicitous name for a child she is sure to find. And if a child be sick she knows that the little one's spirit has been frightened away by a cat or a dog or something else. She will bargain for some twenty cash, take the child's jacket, light a fire in the street and call the frightened spirit back. After the jacket has been put on the child, the spirit is supposed to have taken up again its former abode within;\n\nand our last street crier walks on.\n\n**\n\n埋邊\n\n千睇脚\n\nL\n\nI BALAS\n\n§ to calculate destinies.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205623, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "160\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nnot built a palace, pays the rent of one for his own accommodation out of the public purse.\" The Government accounts for the period reveal that the rent was paid to Johnston for its hire by Government. But it is quite clear from Davis's letter to Stanley that, in August 1844, he could only have been living in Johnston's House if it were then known as the 'Record Office.' That is not beyond possibility for, if the early buildings on the site in the present Botanical Gardens were known as the 'Record Office' when Johnston lived there, his later residence may have attracted the same name to distinguish it from 'Government House.' But that conclusion cannot disturb the main argument.\n\nAs a postscript, it is worth commenting on the suggestion that Sir Samuel Bonham, third Governor, lived at Spring Gardens (Spring Garden Lane in the present Wanchai). Sayer quotes a reference from Robert Fortune's Tea Districts of China (1852) and comments that it is the first and only evidence that a Governor of Hong Kong lived at Spring Gardens. Sayer should have read his Friend of China where he would have discovered advertised, after Bonham's departure from Hong Kong, the sale of a house, doubtless one of those depicted on Murdoch Bruce's sketch of Spring Gardens, which was stated to have been lately in the occupation of Bonham. Fortune was right; or, as Sayer would have put it, he was a veracious witness,12\n\nHong Kong, 1968,\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS Evans\n\nNOTES\n\n1G. R. Sayer, Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age, 1937, Oxford University Press.\n\n2ibid, p. 211.\n\n3Johnston to Pottinger, 12 November 1841; CO129/10, f. 51 (Colonial Office Records).\n\n4c.g. Pottinger to General Burrell, 7 March 1842; CO129/10, f. 114.\n\n5Pottinger to Johnston, 26 May 1842; CO129/10, f. 204.\n\n6Davis to Lord Stanley, 16 August 1844; CO129/7, f. 20.\n\n7Friend of China, Overland Summary, 23 December 1843.\n\n8Woosnam to Gordon, 18 April 1843; CO129/10, f. 360.\n\n9Gordon to Pottinger, 10 February 1844; CO129/5, f. 141.\n\n10Pottinger to Johnston, 21 October 1843; CO129/10, f. 522.\n\n11Friend of China, 18 April 1846.\n\n12See also Friend of China, 26 December 1849. The house was erected by Messrs. Blenkin, Rawson & Co. on Marine Lot 42 and rented to Government for £500 p.a.\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205635, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "172\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nDr. Freedman's essay is concerned with problems in an area to which Professor Firth has made significant contributions. This is the role of the deceased in the organization of the society left behind them (see for example, Firth, Frazer Lecture, 1955). The particular concern here is with the deceased as members of a kinship system.\n\nIn \"Ancestor Worship: Two Facets of the Chinese Case”, Dr. Freedman discusses first the question of geomancy (fêng-shui) in regard to buildings and to tombs (the yang and yin of geomancy), and differences found in the incidence of the two types in two parts of what he calls the sinicized world. China, Vietnam and Korea all practise both kinds of geomancy, but Japan has only that of buildings. He suggests this situation might be explained in terms of the kinship system of these countries. In Japan we do not find the kind of agnatic descent system which we associate with China and can be seen in Korea and Vietnam. He also suggests a relationship between the elaborateness of the geomancy of graves and that of the lineage structure, saying it is probably no accident that in the south-east part of China (principally Fukien and Kwangtung) both lineages and geomancy of tombs have been carried to extreme forms of development.\n\nThe principal argument is that where the authority of past generations represented in the cult of ancestors weighs heaviest, there men redress the balance by recourse to the geomancy of the tomb. It is pointed out that geomancy delivers a man's ancestors into his own hands, so to speak (he may determine fortune by siting one or more graves in a way so that influences of the landscape are channelled through the ancestors' bones to agnatic descendants); but in ancestor worship, which Dr. Freedman then goes on to discuss, ancestors are beings with rights and duties.\n\nThe problem here is why Chinese ancestors are essentially benign. An interesting argument is developed relating this to the connexion between ancestors and the nature of command of those taking over from them in the world of the living. The weight of ethnographical evidence is that ancestors, by being displaced, resent their successors, and also endow them with authority to rule in their place. But in the last two millennia in China there has been a situation whereby the family is a property-owning estate dissolving on the death of each senior generation to reform into successor-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205648, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "THE LIBRARY\n\n185\n\nFIRTH, Raymond.\n\nMalay fishermen: their peasant economy. Issued in cooperation with the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Institute of Pacific Relations. London, Kegan Paul, 1946. (International library of sociology and social reconstruction)\n\nFITZGERALD, C. P.\n\nChina: a short cultural history. 3rd ed. London, Cresset P., 1961.\n\nFONG, Siué-fong.\n\nFables. Pekin, Éditions en Langues Étrangères, 1955.\n\nFORTUNE, Robert.\n\nThree years' wanderings in the northern provinces of China ... Shanghai, University Press, 1935.\n\nFREEDMAN, Maurice.\n\nChinese lineage and society: Fukien and Kwangtung, London, Athlone P., 1966. (London School of Economics. Monographs on social anthropology, no. 33)\n\nFREEDMAN, Maurice.\n\nLineage organization in southeastern China. London, Athlone P., 1958. (London School of Economics. Monographs on social anthropology, no. 18)\n\nFRODSHAM, J. D.\n\nThe murmuring stream: the life and works of the Chinese nature poet Hsieh Ling-yün (385-433), Duke of K'ang-Lo. Kuala Lumpur, Univ. of Malaya P., 1967. 2 vols.\n\nGARNER, Sir Harry.\n\nOriental blue and white. 2nd ed. London, Faber, 1964.\n\nGARVEN, H. S. D.\n\nWild flowers of North China and South Manchuria. Peiping, Peking Natural History Bulletin, 1937.\n\nGEOFFROY-DECHAUME, François.\n\nChina looks at the world: reflections for a dialogue. Eight letters to T'ang-lin, tr. from the French by Jean Stewart. London, Faber, 1967.\n\nGILBERT, Rodney.\n\nWhat's wrong with China. London, Murray, 1926.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205719, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 25, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF COUNCILS\n\n19\n\nan outstanding job in these difficult times in enlightening the Chinese masses and in explaining to them the purpose of the Government measures. For these invaluable services he was later presented with a gold medal and a letter of thanks from the general public of Hong Kong.\n\nWei Yuk was also a far-sighted person, for it was he who first seriously pursued the idea of constructing a railway from Kowloon to Canton and thence to Peking. He spent large sums in furtherance of the scheme which failed, however, owing to the obstacles placed in its way by officials in China.21\n\nWei Yuk served on many Government and public committees. While not being noted for long speeches, he was always clear and precise in expressing his views and advice. He retired from public service in 1917 at the age of 68. For his invaluable services to the Colony, he was awarded the C.M.G. in 1908 and knighted in 1919. He died in 1922.\n\nWhen Sir Kai Ho Kai retired in February 1914, his place in the Legislative Council was filled by Lau Chu-pak, who was born in Hong Kong in 1866. He was a brilliant scholar at the Central School and in 1885 was the first boy to be awarded the Stewart Scholarship.22 After leaving the Central School, he was for a time chief clerk at the Hong Kong Observatory. Later he became a tea merchant and amassed a fortune. He was a generous benefactor of education and helped financially many poor children to complete their schooling. With Ho Fook, he was co-founder, in 1900, of the Chinese Merchants Bureau which was renamed in 1913 the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Before he was appointed to the Legislative Council, he was for many years an active member of the District Watch Force Committee, the Sanitary Board, the Board of Education and the Council of the University of Hong Kong. He was Chairman of the Po Leung Kuk in 1903, a founder-director of the Kwong Wah Hospital in 1907 and Chairman of Tung Wah Hospital in 1909/1910. In January 1909 when a powerful committee was nominated, with the Governor Sir Frederick Lugard as Chairman, to raise funds to start the University of Hong Kong, Lau, Dr. Ho Kai and Wei Yuk were all members of the Committee.\n\nLau Chu-pak's concern in education was demonstrated in 1916 when he suggested, in a Legislative Council meeting, that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205797, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n97\n\nceremonies, audiences and banquets. A white elephant had been captured the previous year, the most auspicious of auguries for the new reign and now its presence seemed to be bringing the expected good fortune. Mongkut seemed to enjoy the company of the Englishmen, particularly Bowring whom he called “my friend”. As a parting gift he offered Sir John two elephants, but they were gracefully declined owing to transport difficulties. But Bowring did accept two tufts of hair from the white elephant's tail, which he later presented to Queen Victoria.\n\nThe gates were open. Within a year the Americans and the French had signed their own versions of the treaty with King Mongkut. In the next three years half a dozen European nations had similar agreements with the Siamese. By April, 1856, Harry Parkes returned with the Queen's instrument of ratification and a personal letter from Her Majesty. King Mongkut was delighted with this royal favour from mighty Britain and ordered a procession for formal delivery of the letter. In fact these ceremonies infuriated Townshend Harris, the newly-arrived American envoy, as he had to wait many days before he could begin discussions on his own treaty.\n\nThe effect of Mongkut's treaties with the West were far-reaching. Trade increased rapidly and had more than doubled by the time of the King's death in 1868. The character of the trade changed. There was virtually no export of rice before 1855, and by the end of the century rice accounted for nearly seventy per cent of Siam's exports. Bangkok grew rapidly, foreign merchants set up offices in the capital and there was an increase in the number of Chinese entering the country. The King's fiscal system had to change. Instead of royal monopolies of imports, taxes were charged at an agreed level.\n\nThe political effects were even more important. Foreign consuls lived in the capital and Siam sent embassies to Europe for the first time. The King took the initiative in employing foreign experts in his civil service. This practice was greatly extended in the next reign, that of his son, King Chulalongkorn. British officers were employed in the police force. A Belgian advised on legal reform. Germans were invited to plan the building of railways. Americans and Danes were appointed to civil and military duties. Most notorious of these appointments was that of Anna", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206139, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 219, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "212\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nTRADITIONAL CHINESE PLAYS, Volume 2, translated, described, annotated and illustrated by A. C. Scott, Longing for the worldly Pleasures, Ssu Fan, Fifteen Strings of Cash, Shih wu kuan, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Milwaukee and London, 1969, pp. X, 156.\n\nThe second volume is translated with all the same accompaniments that we find in the first one. But the two plays chosen are not Peking operas. They belong to another kind of opera which was predominant in China from the end of the XVIth century to the end of the XVIIIth. The music was softer than in Peking opera and the main instrument for accompanying the singing was the flute. As in more ancient forms, the sung parts were written on different types of melodies, with verses of unequal lengths. The literary character of these verses made them difficult for a popular audience to understand. And this type of opera, created at K'un-shan, near Suchow, was later overcome by the success of the genre elaborated at the capital and favoured by the court.\n\nBut this K'un-ch'ü, as it is called, remained for years part of the training of a good Peking opera actor. The famous actor Mei Lan-fang tried to revive it around 1915-16 and again later in 1933 with the great actor Yü Chen-fei. After 1949 a new troupe of K'un-ch'ü was formed, which put on Fifteen Strings of Cash in 1956, with the actor Wang Ch'uan-song as the clown, Lou the Rat.\n\nLonging for worldly Pleasures comes from a Buddhist story: a nun, put in a monastery, escapes to find her paramour. Fifteen Strings of Cash is a detective story from storytellers' repertoires: Lou the Rat commits a murder to steal and puts the blame on the stepdaughter of the murdered man. But a good judge, disguised as a fortune-teller, confounds him.\n\nThe interest of these books lies not so much in the translation of four librettos as in all the information about costumes, make-up, and the movements made by the actors at each moment. Consequently, the work is not just one more translation, but, first and foremost, a handbook; and a good one for anyone wanting to put on and adapt Chinese plays for a foreign audience, instead of being interested in Chinese opera as a museum piece or as an...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206277, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "88\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\none of the leading brokers and charterers of emigrant ships. In front of his lots he erected a wharf which he leased to the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company after its organization in 1865. In 1860, he appeared in the Courts on the charge of piracy. In response to a request of the Mandarin of his home district in Hoi Ping for assistance in suppressing some Hakka bandits, Achoy had chartered the vessel Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy from Kwok Acheong, the P. and O. Company's compradore. Engaging some Europeans in the Colony he took them up to Hoi Ping where they attacked some Hakka villages. Achoy pleaded that he had not realized that this would be against British law and therefore threw himself upon the mercy of the court.19 He again assisted his home district in 1865 by supplying the local militia with western-made armaments. This earned him official recognition and a biographical notice in the Hoi Ping Gazetteer. In later years his constitution was affected by habitual opium smoking and he did not participate actively in public affairs. He died in 1871, leaving a large fortune.20 In 1857, the editor of The Friend of China described him as being \"no doubt the most creditable Chinese in the Colony\".\n\nTang Aluk, another contractor, though not as much of a community leader as Tam Achoy, was a generous benefactor of worthy projects. He was the largest contributor to the Chinese school book fund of 1859, contributing sixty dollars; Tam Achoy contributed fifty dollars and Kwok Acheong, the P. and O. compradore contributed twenty dollars; all other contributions ranged from ten dollars to fifty cents. The fact that Tang Aluk's name was that of \"Number Six\" indicates he was of humble origin. He began as a stone cutter. Most of them were Hakka, and it is probable that Aluk was of this group. In time he built up a successful contracting business. At his death in 1887 he left a large estate, much of which was in landed property. The administration of his estate involved many lawsuits among his heirs. A newspaper commentator observed that the estate was a gold mine for the legal profession as suits and appeals dragged through the courts for several decades after his death.2\n\nTHE MERCHANTS GROUP\n\n21\n\nHong Kong had difficulty in attracting merchants with capital. We have mentioned the abortive efforts of Chinam and several", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206291, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "102\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nto Hong Kong, practiced law, was a member of the Legislative Council from 1929 to 1937.\n\nAnother Government employee—although his family was not as distinguished as that of Tso Aon, but who does appear on a number of our elite lists was the Overseer of Coolies in the Surveyor General's Department. Cheong Assow\n\nwas appointed to this office in September, 1844. He also invested in real estate, which upon his death in 1897 was divided among his seven sons. In 1848 the Surveyor General suggested that Assow was underpaid, as he found him an invaluable man in his department:\n\n+\n\nThe headman Assow I cannot speak too highly of, he is intelligent, honest, and careful, and displays great zeal for the Department. He understands English perfectly, and I can trust him to make measurements for me upon lines that are clearly defined, which he performs with great accuracy. His wages are very small for a man of his usefulness, and I should wish much that they were raised as he is one of the most deserving Chinamen I ever met. His education under me (for he has now been in the Department nearly five years) has progressed so satisfactorily that he is of more service than many of the English overseers I have employed, whose wages are never less than $30 per mensem.36\n\nTHE GROUP EMPLOYED BY MISSIONS\n\nAnother group which identified itself with Hong Kong was a small number of Christians who came here from Malacca, Singapore and Macao under the patronage of missionaries. As Christian converts they had renounced the traditional practices connected with the veneration of ancestors and thus had cut themselves off from participation in the ritual observances which bound the Chinese family together. There seemed little chance that they could expect to be welcomed back to their home villages. In a sense they were as marginal to the social structure of China as were those who had had to flee China because of criminal activities. Unlike the tradesmen and small merchants they did not view Hong Kong as an opportunity to make a quick fortune which they could take back to their home village", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206295, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "106\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nStill another son of the Rev. Ho Fuk Tong, Ho Shan Yow (ii) was a student of law. In 1897 he was a member of the ambassadorial staff of his brother-in-law, Wu Ting Fang, and became Consul-General in San Francisco, where he promoted the organization of the Chinese American Commercial Company capitalized at a million dollars.\n\nThe eldest daughter of Ho Fuk Tong, Ho Mui Ling, married Ng Choy (1) alias Wu Ting Fang (14), a young graduate of St. Paul's College. Ng Choy's father was a business man who spent some years at Singapore where he became a Christian and married a Malay woman. He returned to Canton where he put his two eldest sons, Afat and Akwong, into the Boarding School of the Presbyterian Mission. In 1851, when the California gold-fever was rampant in Kwang Tung, Ng Afat was the ringleader in stirring up the students of the school to rebel against the hold the school had over them due to bonds their parents had signed guaranteeing that their sons would stay in the school until their education was completed. The students resented being held to this agreement as they wished to try their fortune in the gold-fields. The school authorities found it necessary to dismiss Afat. He came to Hong Kong and was employed as clerk in the Police Magistracy. His brother Akwong was a more tractable student and successfully completed his course of studies. After leaving school, he too came to Hong Kong and was for a short time an Interpreter in the Harbour Master's Office, but then about 1864 became the General Manager of the Chinese edition (Chung Ngoi San Po) of The Daily Press. The Wu family was interested in promoting Chinese journalism. The obituary notice of Mr. Chiu Yu Tsun, (The Daily Press, 12 June 1908), the editor of the Chung Ngoi San Po, states that when he joined the staff of the paper in 1873 it was \"under the management of the present Chinese Minister to Washington H. E. Wu Ting Fang and his brother the late Mr. Ng Chan\". When Ng Chan died about 1890, Mr. Chiu succeeded as sub-lessee and General Manager.\n\nWu Ting Fang was only four when the family returned from Singapore. In time he became a student of St. Paul's College in Hong Kong, where he was baptized. Upon graduation he followed the pattern set by his brothers and entered Government service as chief clerk and shroff in the Court of Summary Jurisdiction.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206425, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 242, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "216\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\ncusp of the crescent\" (of the Praya Grande), deserves the derision of every collector.\n\nTheir description of \"the ambroidered (sic) phoenix plastron” conclusively proves the authors know nothing of the eight privileged classes in China. With this lack of knowledge they are in no position to comment on any portrait of a mandarin or hong merchant. To suggest that Gou Qua, a hong merchant, would take to the street as a fortune teller is quite impossible as he would lose face by such an act and never would paint himself in this situation.\n\nThe authors really know very little about Chinnery. They state \"Chinnery's forte was for portraits and these comprise the greater part of his oeuvre\". Pages later they quote him \"I have about 6,000 sketches of Eastern Scenery already - an invaluable collection, I assure you; but you see I am constantly accumulating”. They produce the completely unproven slur that one of the portraits he painted was of “a man of great wealth, an important qualification in the artist's philosophy as he was at his best when a generous fee had been agreed\". They also attempt, again with no proof, to attribute to him “occasional bouts of opium smoking”.\n\nIt is an error to say \"Russell & Co..... in turn came under control of Low Brothers of Salem\". W. H. Low, Senior was a partner 1830-1833. His nephew, A. A. Low, was a clerk 1833-1837, partner 1837-1840. W. H. Low 2nd worked as a clerk but never was a partner. The famous firm of A. A. Low and Bros. of New York, please, not Salem - was founded in 1841 by A. A. Low after he had retired from Russell & Co. It is a solecism to call the firm \"Russells\". It makes a good story only to the authors that \"W. C. Hunter\", later a partner in Russell & Co., “grasped sufficient of the local dialect to act as interpreter\". It is common knowledge that he specifically was sent to Singapore and Malacca to study Chinese.\n\nIt is inaccurate to state that Harriet Low, in her Diary, mentions seeing the double portrait of Dr. & Mrs. Colledge, plate 79, in London at Daniells' on 19 July 1834. She \"saw pictures of Mr. & Mrs. Colledge, not a single picture. Let us read further in the Diary: \"Ayok\" (the Low Chinese servant) \"burst into quite an hysterical laugh when he saw his father's face in Mr. Colledge's picture\". This is an obvious reference to the Chinnery portrait", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206488, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "30\n\nLEIGH R. WRIGHT\n\nentered the Borneo scene in 1839 very much the idealist-humani-tarian, nineteenth century liberal, gentleman adventurer, in the colonial tradition of such forerunners as Francis Light of Penang and Thomas Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore and sometime British governor of Java. Even much of the colour and romance painted by the early travellers and story writers bears up under the careful scrutiny of the historian.\n\nJames Brooke came from stock which had produced a seven-teenth century lord mayor of London. His father and uncle were civil servants in the East India Company, and James lived until aged 12 near Benares on the Ganges in British India where he was born in 1803.\n\nBrooke himself entered the military service of the Company after a somewhat indifferent education which involved only two years of formal schooling in the Norwich Grammar School. He was severely wounded in a campaign of the first Anglo-Burma war in 1825, and after a prolonged convalescence resigned from the Company, largely, we are led to believe, because of disenchantment with its conduct of eastern affairs and because of widespread corruption among Company servants.\n\nWhen in 1835 Brooke's father, then a retired nabob living in Bath, died leaving him a comfortable fortune of £30,000, James bought a schooner and fitted out an expedition to Borneo and the Celebes Islands, an area in the East Indies with which he was familiar from earlier voyages and from exhaustive reading of the accounts of George Windsor Earl and Stamford Raffles.\n\nBrooke's schooner sailed in December 1838 under the colours of the Royal Yacht Club. He looked forward to satisfying his adventurous curiosity about Borneo and perhaps doing some trading. He particularly wanted to penetrate to the interior of Borneo, and had in mind exploring up the rivers which flowed into Marudu Bay, on the northern end of the island. He was a private voyager, but the colours of the Royal Yacht Club commanded respect in naval and colonial circles and he was well received in Singapore where he arrived in May 1839.\n\nI\n\nThere he was given a pseudo-official mission to perform in Borneo. Several Singapore-based vessels had recently been ship-wrecked or plundered by Bornean pirates and their crews sold into", "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": 206632, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "174\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nA legend in another book, the Shen I Ching (*) says that Chin Ch'ong (†) the son of Pan Ku the Creator of the World, who lived in the mountains of Shantung province, was canonised T'ai Sui for his many good deeds and was made responsible to Heaven for supervising the activities of all spirits (shen‡) and demons (kuei§). Few present-day Chinese with whom I have spoken appear to know of this story.\n\nT'ai sui was first worshipped during the Sung Dynasty in the eleventh century A.D. and was first offered official sacrifices during the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. Only after The Deification of the Gods popularised the idea was T'ai Sui identified with Yin Ch'iao.\n\nReason for the worship of Yin Ch'iao\n\nYin Ch'iao, or T'ai Sui as he will be referred to from now on, is a stellar deity who in many parts of China is believed to have flood, famine and all good and bad fortune under his jurisdiction. He is worshipped by the general populace to avert calamities, and has to be placated before any enterprise or journey is embarked upon. He was also worshipped by the imperial officials at the beginning of Spring. He is known to control the dates and times of births and deaths, and each one of his sixty images often displayed in rows in temples is dedicated to one specific year in the sixty year cycle of Chinese dating. Chinese place their offerings on the altar before the T'ai Sui bearing the cyclic year date of their birth. Father Doré in his Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine calls him the \"Patron of the Harvests\".\n\nT'ai Sui is the great Father Time who, presiding over the year, is the arbiter of the destiny of all men. He is very much feared as he destroys those whom he dislikes and those who offend him. He is said to strike when least expected and can injure and destroy the highest and the lowest, at home or on the high roads, but is believed never to injure anyone in the vicinity of his, T'ai Sui's, own person. Therefore it is essential to know where he is at any given moment, and if he is nearby but not immediately present, he is at his most dangerous and precautions against his evil influence must be taken at once. This is done by hanging the appropriate talisman or stellar charm near the front door or facing the entrance. To find where T'ai sui will be during the forthcoming year he is believed to move annually—a device similar to a compass is used by a fêng shui\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 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": 206672, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "214\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nWhen Sir Percival David undertook to translate the KKYL, he avoided one of the pitfalls of working with Ming books, and Ming editions of earlier work, by making sure he had a reliable edition. This he did in 1940 in Shanghai, when he acquired the earliest known edition of the book which is most probably the first edition of 1388. It would have been a relatively simple task to translate this original (\"original\" in the sense that it was the first book published in this name by Ts'ao Chao) work of three chapters. But later he also had the good fortune to acquire an equally rare 1462 printing of the enlarged edition of 1459 which had been swelled to thirteen chapters with additions made mainly by Wang Tso who brought out the 1459 edition. Sir Percival decided, bravely but perhaps not so wisely, to translate the enlarged edition. But then he failed to avoid the other pitfalls mentioned at the beginning of this review.\n\nFirst, there is the original three chapter edition. The copy acquired by Sir Percival, called \"O\" in the translation, is reproduced in full at the end of the book. Sir Percival thought it was \"the result of Ts'ao's study of actual specimens and ancient texts concerning them\". This is not so. For, with the exception of a few very brief entries on Sung porcelain and on lacquer, the whole book is a collection of mutilated passages extracted from similar works of the Sung and Yuan periods, such as Chao Hsi-ku's Tung-t'ien-ch'ing-lu-tsi (hereafter referred to as the TTCLT) and Hsia Wen-yen's T'u-hui Pao-chien. The latter is itself a notorious work of plagiarism.1 It should be noted here that the \"erudite\" manuscript notes in \"O\" written by a Ming reader consist mainly of sentences from the TTCLT which Ts'ao Chao omitted in his copying. Indeed Ts'ao was such a poor plagiarist that he made nonsense out of some of the most important passages in the TTCLT. For example, the detailed and accurate description of the cire perdue process of bronze casting in the TTCLT, incidentally one of the earliest Chinese accounts of this method of bronze casting, appears in the KKYL as (David's translation): \"Ancient moulds (reviewer's italics) for casting bronzes were made of wax. The patterns were finely and neatly carved as finely as a hair, and the strokes of their inscriptions were even and clear. They were inverted like roof-tiles, though not very deep.... \"The mistranslation of the word mo, meaning the original wax model of the bronze, into English \"mould\" is of course at least partly due to the brutal précis-ing of two long", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206674, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 222, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "216\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\ndilettante until the Kang-hsi period scholar Ho Cho (*) made known his annotated manuscript copy of the book. Thus the KKYL comes down to the Ching period with the great prestige it acquired during the Ming period, through no merit of its own but through the obscurity of other early work. It may be said that the T'u-hui Pao-chien, composed not long before the KKYL, also suffered the same good fortune. The value of the KKYL for study today lies not in the originality of the material; rather, it deserves study for what it indirectly reveals of early Ming tastes and popular beliefs regarding works of art. More importantly, it serves as a record of the confusion that resulted from the very great cultural and social upheavals which took place in China as a result of the Mongol conquest. The Yuan and early Ming periods saw the \"popularisation\" of a class of knowledge which had hitherto been confined to a very small élite. Ts'ao Chao was a man who stood mid-way between the old élite and the newly literate, and helped to propagate such knowledge. When Ming society settled down to a new pattern, a new class of literate élite grew up in the Chiang-nan area (mainly Chiangsu and Chekiang provinces) with their own canons of taste which have been recorded in books such as Kao Lien's Tsun-shêng Pa-chien but nowhere more elegantly than in Wên Chên-hêng's Ch'ang-wu-chih.\n\nWe now turn to the additions made by subsequent editors incorporated in the Wang Tso edition. These additions occupy several times more space than the original three chapters. Wang Tso, despite the peculiarity of his tastes (which were not so for his age), at least had the honesty to quote his own sources (often not the original sources of the passages). He, like many dilettantes of his time, had a great predilection for calligraphy, especially \"ancient\" calligraphy as transmitted in the form of old rubbings and, in particular, rubbings of the Lan-t'ing Preface supposedly written in 353 by Wang Hsi-chih, the most revered of Chinese calligraphers of all times. Quite one fifth of Wang Tso's book is devoted to calligraphy and rubbings (sixty pages in a translation text of about three hundred pages), and a large portion of this section is devoted to the not always consistent myths and legends which had grown round the holy script through the centuries. Now, Chinese connoisseurship, even without the benefit of western analytical methods, is usually highly sensitive and astute. But when it came to the Lan-t'ing Preface, all the enlightened perception of nearly all scholars throughout", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206791, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 68, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "62\n\nCHIU LING-YEONG\n\nT'ang government to maintain the security and prosperity of these multi-racial cities harmoniously and peacefully.\n\nII\n\nIn T'ang China, apart from the capital Ch'ang-an and the Eastern capital Lo-yang, the most prosperous cities within the Empire were Kuang-chou, Yang-chou, Chiao-chou, and Ch'üan-chou.16 These cities were all centres of Persian and Arabian trade. There were a large number of Persians and Arabs living in these cities. In A.D. 760, when T'ien Shen-kung raided Yang-chou, it was recorded that several thousands of Persians and Arabs were massacred.17 It is not clear whether this was an isolated incident or an act of retaliation because the Persians and Arabs had sacked Canton in A.D. 758.18\n\nIt was also believed that Huang Chao had killed thousands of foreign merchants when he captured Canton in A.D. 878.19 The large number of Persians and Arabs killed in Yang-chou and Canton confirmed that the foreign population in these cities was indeed very large. Activities of Persians and Arabs in these cities were confined to maritime trade because the majority of them were merchants. There were also Islamic disciples who came to China with the intention to preach. In the reign of Wu-te (A.D. 618-626), four Islamic disciples were dispatched to China to spread the Mohammedan faith. Of these four, one was posted in Canton, one in Yang-chou and the other two were stationed in Ch'üan-chou.20 There is evidence that some of these Persians, Arabs and Uighurs were also engaged in the restaurant business in Yang-chou and Ch'ang-an. It was recorded that they made very good hu-ping, yu-chien ping and pi-lo.21 Ssu-ma Kuang mentioned in his Tzu-chih t'ung-chien that when Hsüan-tsung took his 'Imperial Excursion' to Szechuan during An Lu-shan's rebellion, the 'Excursion' set off so suddenly that the Emperor had no chance to bring his chef with him. His brother-in-law, Yang Kuo-chung therefore, had to buy hu-ping for him during their journey to the West China.22\n\nThe Persian and Arabian merchants brought to China precious stones and hsiang-yao; and they always could earn a fortune very easily by these commodities. Financially speaking, maritime trade had become very important in the beginning of the eighth", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206969, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "34 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nMayréna was joined by Father Guerlach, a missionary who had lived in the Moï region for many years and spoke several local dialects. On 3 June 1888, the members of the confederation accepted a constitution drawn up by Mayréna, which made him king. It is suggested by Marcel Ner1 and other scholars that Mayréna owed much of his success to his skill at prestidigitation, for the Moï were extremely superstitious and accepted his tricks as a sign of moral excellence and divinity. \n\nMayréna by a surprising turn of fortune had become Marie, King of the Sedangs. The new kingdom was named after the Sedangs simply because this tribe formed the most populous element in the confederation of Moï tribesmen. He made Mercurol, the middle-aged, malaria-riddled adventurer from Saigon, the Marquis of Henoui, and created a number of orders of chivalry. His most fanciful creation was the Order of Merit pour récompenser les lettres, les arts, les sciences, l'industrie et le dévouement à la maison royale. It is difficult to understand for whom this order was intended since the Sedangs were totally illiterate. His Annamite mistress—Ahnaïa20—became Queen of the Sedangs, but although the official religion of the kingdom was now Catholicism, the young Ahnaïa resolutely refused to give up her pagan practices, much to the disgust of the missionaries who had foregathered at Mayréna's capital, Kon-Djeri, where the royal palace was a primitive hut above which, however, the royal standard fluttered. \n\nMayréna led his warriors into several campaigns against recalcitrant tribes with varying success; but his real problem was not one of warfare but of money. He lacked the means to live in the style which he now felt was his due. It was the search, therefore, for financial support which led him to Hanoi and Haiphong and in November 1888 to Hong Kong. \n\nThe Marquis de Morès21 \n\nAntoine-Amédée-Marie-Vincent-Manca de Vallombrosa, marquis de Morès et de Monte-Maggiore, was born in Paris in 1858. Unlike Mayréna, he was of noble blood. His ancestors, the Spanish Mancas, had been granted feudal estates in Sardinia in the fourteenth century. The family remained based in Sardinia until the early nineteenth century when the Marquis' grandfather settled in France. Morès received the conventional education of one of his class; he was first tutored by an abbé, then sent to the Catholic", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206971, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "36 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nto organise the retail meat market in that state. This enterprise also failed, so the disillusioned Marquis, who had lost a large part of his private fortune, returned home to France in 1886. \n\nMorès' father, the Duke of Vallombrosa, advised his despondent son to take a long vacation and suggested a journey to India, a land the Duke had visited in his younger days. In November, 1887, therefore, Morès and his wife embarked at Marseilles for the journey out to Bombay. \n\nFrom Bombay Morès and his wife went by train to Calcutta, where they stayed with the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, and where they met Prince Henry of Orléans. The Marquis and the Prince and a few friends at once organised an expedition into the interior to shoot game. Another expedition, to Nepal, was organised soon after they returned from their first chase, this time with Medora as participant. After five weeks the party returned with the skins of many wild beasts, including that of a tiger which the redoubtable Marquise had herself shot. In the spring of 1888, Morès and his wife returned to Europe. \n\nThe ship that took Morès and his wife back to France was also carrying a number of his old comrades, former Saint-Cyriens, returning from the campaign in Tonkin. Morès had long conversations with these French colonial army officers and learned much about conditions in Indo-China. On the voyage back he thus became deeply interested in the commercial prospects of this new French colonial possession. But to open up and develop the territory necessitated the construction of a railway system: Morès decided to pioneer such an enterprise. As soon as he reached Paris he hurried to see the Minister for Foreign Affairs and presented a plan for building without government aid a railway line from Hanoi to the Chinese border. He was given official permission to prospect the region of Tonkin. On 21 October 1888, as noted, Morès left Marseilles together with William Van Driesche and an engineer, M. Thorel. On 22 November 1888 he landed at Hong Kong en route for Haiphong, and the start of another adventure: the economic exploitation of the Red River basin, a scheme as grandiose as the one he had been engaged on in the Dakotas. \n\nMayréna's Odyssey in Hong Kong \n\nMayréna spent his first days in the Colony studiously cultivating members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. He visited the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206984, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\nForeign Adventurers\n\n49\n\nThe word 'adventurer' derives etymologically from the French aventurier, a term applied in the fifteenth century to a gamester. Over time the word has evolved to encompass a number of social types such as the soldier of fortune, the speculator, the impostor, and a person who lives by his wits. The Grand Larousse encyclopédique states magistrally that the aventurier is a 'personne qui vit d'intrigues, et n'est pas très scrupuleuse sur les moyens de se procurer de l'argent, le pouvoir, etc.' The concept includes two important elements—the idea that an adventurer is one who freely chooses to take risks and is involved, if only faute de mieux, in some kind of imposture or degree of deceit. This latter quality is particularly attached to the role of the adventuress, for she is perceived as someone who will stick at nothing to gain her ends, including the prostitution of her body; but it must be granted that the terms ‘adventurer' and ‘adventuress' are not simply the male and female equivalents of the same thing, they are linked to social roles, each of which, the male and female, has a different content. An adventurer may be an extremely moral person, like the Marquis de Morès, but an adventuress can hardly be that.\n\nPsychologically, adventurers may be positioned on various points of a continuum, ranging from the atavistic adventurer (the adventurer per se or sui generis) at the one end, to the run-of-the-mill soldier of fortune,54 hardly distinguishable from any other professional, at the other. Mayréna exemplifies the first species; a poseur, liar, gambler, swindler, and crook; his morals were those of the barnyard, though he was often extremely brave. The aristocratic and patriotic Morès, devoted husband and father, a devout Catholic of impeccable private morality, was more a soldier of fortune, as were many of his Spanish forefathers in Sardinia; he was a gentleman who simply enjoyed danger, challenge, movement; he was exhilarated by life in exotic climes. Thus Mayréna and Morès represent two extremes of a class of adventurers, a social category equivalent to that of bandits, feminists, sportsmen, terrorists.55\n\nThe golden age of the European adventurer spanned the hundred years from Waterloo to the First World War. It is true that adventurers of all types flourished before that period—condottierri, landsknechten, conquistidores, filibusters, freebooters, buccaneers, explorers, imposters, swindlers and tricksters—but the hundred years of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206986, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG \n\n51 \n\nboarded Huck Finn's raft on the Mississippi went by the names of the Duke of Bilgewater (Bridgewater) and the Dauphin. But a title not only helped to disarm potential sceptics but allowed an adventurer to secure credit, often a necessity for the realisation of his schemes. Mayréna, as we have seen, kept himself afloat for some time by the sale of bogus titles, decorations and honours. A title, as it were, gave the claimant a fake persona, a social mask or facade behind which the predator could lurk. In this century, however, a devaluation of titles has taken place coincident with the rise of meritocracy.\n\nPoor communications helped an adventurer of the impostor or swindler type, for if knowledge of his past leaked out too soon, this would undermine any claim to respectability and diminish confidence in his intentions. News flowed more sluggishly in the nineteenth century, though it was a period of great achievements in the development of a network of world-wide communications. In 1853 the P. and O. had established a regular mail service between Hong Kong and Calcutta, thus establishing fortnightly communications with England; in 1863 the French Messageries Maritimes opened a route to the East; telegraph connection with Manila was achieved in 1880, with Canton in 1882. Nevertheless, mail, newspapers, and reading matter of all kinds took time — usually a month — to reach Hong Kong from Europe, even at the end of the century. There was also no Interpol to flash news by telegraph or wireless about international swindlers, pretenders and other social pests. The Hong Kong public had to wait several weeks before Le Courrier d'Haiphong brought news of the accusations Father Guerlach had levelled against Mayréna. It was not until 24 December 1888, six weeks after his arrival in Hong Kong, that the general public acquired some knowledge of Mayréna's chicanery and general untrustworthiness.\n\nIt was not only the pursuit of adventure, of fame or fortune, that drew adventurers to alien shores. Some left their homelands to escape from the cultural constraints and legal bind of their own societies — an escape, as they saw it, into freedom, innocence and, its corollary, libertinage.57 Laurence Hope, the wife of Lieutenant-General M. H. Nicolson of the Bengal Army, in 1902 wrote:\n\nUpon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam,\n\nThe Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream,58", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207096, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n161\n\nAnother ancestral hall, built by the Tang family was less fortunate. The story goes that in the 1st year of Ka Hing (✯✯) A.D. 1796 of Ts'ing dynasty, the sons of Tang Yue Cheung (**) decided to build an ancestral hall worthy to house the tablet of their illustrious ancestress, the princess. So they built a house of “kak muk” (**) in T’aai Họng (✯✯✯) village, and in shape the house was like a king's palace. At that time the district magistrate of Sun On was a man nicknamed “Hungry Bug\" on account of his habit of collecting \"squeeze\" wherever he could. When he heard of the new building being erected in Kam T'in, and how magnificent it was, he scented a chance to make money. So he sent a message to the Tangs to say he would like to inspect their new acquisition.\n\nThe Tangs were much dismayed; being familiar with the character of their district officer they knew quite well the object of his visit, they did not want to pull down the house yet its very existence was an indication of their wealth and prosperity. In the village of Lung Kwat T'au (#) where the villagers are Tangs too, being descendants of the first son of the princess, there was a portrait of the princess and the Tangs of Kam T'in borrowed it and hung it up in the entrance of the hall. When the district officer saw it he was filled with awe, and hastily made obeisance to it. He was so impressed that he dared not demand money from the descendants of so distinguished a lady, and after making a show of being pleased he stayed one night, and then took his departure.\n\nEventually the picture had to be returned to its rightful owners, and the Kam T’in men fearing further trouble, pulled the hall down, but the foundation stones, overgrown with weeds and grass can still be seen.\n\nThe legends of Kam T'in are curiously mixed up with tales of buried treasure. One story tells how at the end of the Ming dynasty the Tangs wished to build an ancestral hall for the tablet of their eleventh ancestor, Tang Kwong Yue ( ). Tang Ping Yee (*) (a grandson of Tang Kwong Yue) and eight of Tang Ping Yee's cousins chose what was, according to one \"Fung shui\" man, a very lucky day to put up the central beam of the house, but a few days later they found that the beam was putting forth shoots. The people considered this to be a bad omen, so they consulted a more reliable fortune-teller, who declared that the day had been a lucky day, but for building boats, not houses! The people at once pulled down the beam, the time happened to be the season of the dragon boat festival, and the villages decided to make the discarded", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207099, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "164 \n\nSUNG HOK-PANG \n\nOn picking up the coins it was found that one large one, bigger than the rest, had two characters on it (*) Shing Kwong. The villagers accounted for this by believing that the coins must have belonged to a man named Shing Kwong who in some time of trouble had buried them. After many years the spirit of the silver had caused it to fly away to be bestowed on some lucky man who deserved good fortune. Thus the money was collected together and handed over to the house. \n\nWhen the baby, who played such an important part in this story, was a month old, he received his first name which was Tang Naan. Later on, when he was old enough to go to school he was sent by his grandmother to a country school. It is a Chinese custom for a new pupil to ask his teacher to give him a new name \"shue meng” ✯ % (=a name for a pupil-book name) Tang Naam's teacher, who was not a Kam T'in man, and knew nothing about the story of \"Ngan t'au Laam” in Kam T’in, strangely enough gave him the name “Shing Kwong,” exactly the same as the two characters on the largest coin. When evening came and school lessons were finished, the boy went back to his house with his books and much surprised the village elders by showing them his new name written on all his books. \n\nAfter that they were quite convinced that the money was meant for him. When he grew up Tang became a merchant and because of his wealth he was able to subscribe liberally to public funds which resulted in his receiving the honour of being made Chau T'ung (#) assistant officer of Chau, which meant that he was higher than a district officer. His official name of Tang Sz Taan was recorded in the History of Sun On. He built himself a very big house called Naam Teng, the remains of which can still be seen on the south side of Kat Hing Wai. The round outside wall and the stone doorway with the three characters on it (1) Lin Hing Lei, \"Continuous Blessing Place\" are still there. \n\nTwo stories of this merchant have been handed down. One of his children married into a very prosperous family named To living at Ts'eng Chuen Wai, † near Castle Peak, and between Tang and the head of this family who was a farmer, owning several hundred acres, there existed a friendly rivalry. One day they were having a meal together in old Yuen Long market and both of them, heated with wine, contested that he was the richer. To declared", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207123, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 194, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "In his book on Plant Geography (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1903) A.F.W. Schimper produces a World Plant Map which is based on climatic conditions. It is interesting to see that, in this classification system, Hong Kong lies within the area of \"evergreen broad-leaved forest\" type of vegetation.\n\nThis classical type of forest, however, has virtually disappeared, largely as a result of human activities such as repeated cutting and the use of fire both intentional and accidental. Consequently, there are few areas of forest-type vegetation which could be described as \"probably indigenous\" left in the Colony today.\n\nThese remaining patches of forest consist generally of low scrub growth in ravines and relatively inaccessible places, together with isolated areas of woodland which are often quite dense and which, paradoxically, are located very near to villages and hamlets in the New Territories.\n\nThese are the so-called \"Fung Shui\" woodlands, and they provide a remarkable contrast with the adjacent hillsides which generally carry a sparse vegetation of grasses and shrubs with scattered pine trees of poor form and insignificant size. These \"Fung Shui\" woodlands may, in fact, give a fair impression of the character of the original vegetation of Hong Kong before \"Homo sapiens\" came on the scene.\n\nSuch \"Fung Shui\" woodlands owe their present existence to the protection afforded by the villagers in accordance with ancient traditions relating to the interactions of Wind (Fung) and Water (Shui) on the village environment.\n\nThe location of villages, and indeed of ancestors' graves, was decided upon after due consideration has been given to aspect, exposure, elevation, drainage, air movement, etc. A village which is favourably sited with regard to these considerations is thought likely to confer good fortune on its occupants, and this quality of site and environment has come to be known loosely as the \"Fung Shui\" of the village.\n\nIn China, the factors which collectively make up favourable \"Fung Shui\" were often \"assessed\" by an expert in geomantic art, whose advice was sought in the final choice of site for a village or an important grave.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207312, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "72\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nand then a company is contracted to erect the temporary bamboo structures to house performances and ceremonies. The ideal is for the structures to be arranged in a square, the temple facing East and the stage opposite (i.e. West), so that the god is conveniently positioned to get the best view of the stage. The organizers are housed on one or both sides of the temple and on the sides of the square are exhibited the giant-sized dragon-robes, crowns and boots, all elaborately made of paper, which will be burnt and, in this way, sent as a birthday present to the god.\n\nAND RICE TO DONATE TO THE POOR EXHIBITION OF COLLECTED GOODS\n\nFESTIVAL\n\nTEIFLE\n\nCOMMITTEE\n\nHALL FOR CEREMONIES TO\n\nAPPEASE SOULS\n\n辉花\n\nROOF TO SHELTER AUDIENCE\n\n(FORMERLY OF NATTING, NOW TIN SHUI WAI)\n\nSTAGE\n\nKITCHEN\n\nEXHIBITION OF PAPER DRAGON ROBES\n\nChiuchow festival square (the layout is almost the same whether it is used for the celebration of god's birthdays pao-tan or for the appeasement of the hungry souls in the 7th month called Yu-lan-p'en).\n\nThe interior of the temporary temple is almost completely occupied by a large square table (about 4m x 4m) on which items donated by individuals of the community are displayed before they are auctioned off. Holding a microphone and a gong several auctioneers stand on a table in front of the temple and, competing with the loudspeakers amplifying the opera music, they promise prosperity and good fortune (in the traditional 4-character phrases) to the highest bidder. Bottles of brandy and whiskey, porcelain figures of immortals and deities, and colourful lamps and lanterns go for several hundred or thousands of dollars at a time. Although the successful bidder can take his acquisition home he does not pay the bid until the following festival. And especially if he is poor at the time, he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207313, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA\n\n73\n\nmay later increase his bid to several thousands of dollars, because the people are convinced that a god who is powerful (for whom it is worthwhile to give such a lavish celebration) will ensure the bidder good fortune so that he can pay his debt the next year. And because many people become rich in this way it is possible to collect the large sums of money necessary to cover the cost of these on-going festivals.\n\nThe community proves its wealth by inviting, if it can, the best and most costly operatic troupe. This is now the Sang Ngai Chiuchow Opera troupe (founded in 1965) which charges a fee of up to 20,000 HK$ per evening. The troupe consists of about 80 members, which include 20 musicians, 40 actors, stage-hands, a costume-keeper, hair-dresser, art-director, designer, manager, coolies and a cook.\n\nOZTUKI CORTEN\n\nTABLE 2\n\nPROVI\n\nSTART OF\n\nW.C.\n\nThe Chiuchow Opera stage and 'p'o-t'an' ceremony.\n\nThe size of the stage depends on circumstances and forms a square, including its backstage which is only accessible by climbing up a ladder where the troupe's kitchen is. On the morning of the first performance the coolies carry the 20-40 big wooden trunks on a bamboo pole up the ladder and then they are all put in their right position backstage. Those with the musical instruments go left and right of stage; those with hats and small props are lined up at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207318, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "78\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\npart, and even the music was streamlined by her. There are up to date eight plays in their repertoire: Pa-pao kung-chu† ± princess Pa-pao; T'ao-hua huo tu*; also called Su Liu-niang*; Shih yü-cho£; The Jade-bracelet; Ch'en San Wu-Niang: Tze Liang Chi : Tang Po-hu tien ch'iu-hsiang唐伯虎點秋香(三笑姻緣); Shou Shu-yüan搜書院; and Tze Lang-chu辭郎洲.\n\nHere is the content of two of these operas as they were performed by Hsiao Nan-ying in Hong Kong in 1975.\n\nSTABBING LIANG CHI (✯✯M✯)\n\nLiang Chi, a treacherous prefect, passes through the streets and his guards catch a man who roamed about instead of retiring at the approach of the prefect. When questioned, it turns out that he is a fortune-teller. The prefect dismisses his entourage and encourages the fortune-teller to look at his face and tell his fortune. After some hesitation he talks professional terminology about Liang's eyes and physiognomy and asks him about his age. 63 was the answer. Then he would be stabbed in the next 3 days; but if he could avoid it he would be very successful thereafter. If he wants to avoid it—and he asked the lord to go backwards 3 steps—then he should not go out of his house and not see anyone from outside for 3 days.\n\nThe fortune-teller, although afraid, was rather satisfied with the prospect to see this wretched lord killed.\n\nAfter this the fortune-teller wished to get out of the house as fast as possible, but the lord called his housekeeper and ordered him to feed the fortune-teller,\n\nThe gates were locked and orders given, and then the lord planned to enjoy these 3 days of unexpected leisure. As he had just got a new lady in his residence, he gave orders that she should serve him the wine that night.\n\nThe new lady (performed by Hsiao Nan-ying) was in fact the daughter of a fisherman whom the lord had killed with an arrow. The fisherman's daughter had come instead of another, in order to avenge her father. When she was summoned, she knew that this was her chance to fulfill her vows. She took a hair pin from her hair, and decided that she would stab him with it. The ladies-in-waiting brought a crown and gorgeous red garments to dress her for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207319, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA\n\n79\n\nthe occasion. Trembling yet decided to carry out her plan, she enters the lord's chamber. She moves in the most alluring way and greets the lord coquettishly. And the lord is surprised to see such a beauty. 'How fortunate am I to be blessed with such a beautiful girl in my old age,' he laughs loudly and roughly. Then she offers him wine with all good wishes and succeeds in making him drunk.\n\nSuddenly a secret message is delivered; the lord dismisses everyone and reads it. There is an uprising and he is ordered to get it under control as quickly as possible. But how could he leave the house? No; he excuses himself because of illness and dispatches someone else to take care of it. He seizes the brush but is unable to write and sinks on the table, passing out because of over-indulgence in wine. The fisher-girl comes back with a cup of wine and when she is sure of his state, she realises her opportunity. She disappears and returns in fighting dress, blue blouse and trousers, tucked-in white pleated skirt, hair in a tail hanging down, ready to avenge. She trembles, then musters up courage, but when he moves she falls down shocked. Finally she seizes him, and as he raises his head she pushes her pin into his chest. They fight before he finally dies.\n\nThese movements of the girl are some of the most interesting in the Chiuchow opera repertoire.\n\nSuddenly she hears voices and fears to be discovered. She quickly hides under the heavy brocades of the table cover. The ladies-in-waiting find the body and call the housekeeper who immediately calls the fortune-teller, because as he knew that the lord would be stabbed, he could now state by whom. The fortune-teller accuses everyone of those present and then chases them out. Then he taps on the table and the girl comes out. They recognize each other because she has once saved his life. Quickly she explains why she did it, and how, and begs him to save her.\n\nThe fortune-teller, hearing about the secret message, quickly writes into it, \"as it is my fault and I am unable to serve my country, I kill myself\".\n\nThe girl hides again, the household comes back and the fortune-teller explains the letter. Then he says, “Oh, an uprising, the rebels will be here soon and then it's difficult to save one's life, so save who can\". They all run for their lives.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207320, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "80\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nThe girl comes out of hiding, and the fortune-teller takes her to safety.\n\nSU LIU-NIANG (SIXTH DAUGHTER SU) *** Drama in 10 acts, lasting about 3.4 hours.\n\nDramatis personae: Su family: Uncle, the eldest of the Su clan Mr. Su and Mrs. Su, their daughter, Liu-niang (6th young lady),* her maid, T'ao-hua, 1 girl-servant and 2 man-servants\n\nAct I\n\nyoung master Yang young master Kuo\n\nand his wet-nurse cousin of Liu-niang\n\nTao-hua the maid comes to the river returning from Hsi-lu\n\nwith a parasol, gay silk trousers and jacket, her hair in two knots one over each ear garlanded with flowers, the temple hair hanging down in two long strands which are adorned with coloured silk-strings. She calls the ferryman [old man-servant type with white beard], who arrives rowing with an oar. There are no other stage props. The movement of the boat is all indicated by mime.\n\nT'ao-hua hides behind the parasol fooling the ferryman and suddenly surprises him by showing her face. Then she pretends to be afraid to jump on the ferry, so the old man tries hard to bring the boat closer. With a wicked smile she jumps on the boat with all her strength, causing it almost to turn over. They perform a beautiful dance to balance the boat and she pretends to be terribly frightened.\n\nThey then start chatting and T'ao-hua proposes to sing a couplet each, composing it as they go along. But which of them first says things that are wrong or cannot rhyme has lost. The old man starts, \"In the first month all flowers bloom...\". T'ao-hua carries on, \"In the 2nd month the cotton tree blooms\" and so on.\n\n*The names of sons and daughters of important families (those with high doors) in these operas are called, for example, Su Liu-niang, meaning the sixth daughter of the Su family. The parents Su have only one daughter, but she is still called the sixth daughter because she is the sixth girl born in this generation to all the brothers of Mr. Su. The same is the case for Wu-niang meaning 5th daughter, called such although she is the only child of her parents. Ch'en San is the third (son) of the Ch'en clan. The term 'niang' is an address for a young lady, whereas the word 'chieh' 'sister' is used for a girl of humble birth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207811, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "184\n\nMICHAEL SMITHIES\n\nare those that form a complete contrast with the classical structures of the first major Burmese capital. These are the 19th century temples in wood. The Shwenandaw was built by Thibaw in 1880, five years before he was taken away in captivity by the British and the kingdom ended. Most of the materials came from part of a palace occupied by King Mindon which was dismantled. The elaboration of the carving is overwhelming and one suspects that to like it, after the sober majesty of Pagan, is to border on bad taste. The Shweinbin to the south of the city is even more elaborate, and still being a very active monastery the monks' saffron robes form a strong contrast to the teak wood greying with age, sun and rain on the outside. Like all wooden buildings these temples are raised above the ground on pillars and the space beneath is used for storage.\n\nMandalay has few other temples of note; those on the hill are mostly modern, and the Kuthodaw near its base dates from 1857 and is more important for the 729 stone slabs containing all the Buddhist scriptures which King Mindon had made for the Fifth Synod. The authorized version of the Tripitaka was inscribed on the slabs, each beneath its own vaulted canopy. Atumashi was built in 1880 and resembles more an Italian palace, but as only the base remains after a fire in 1890 it is hard to judge fairly. The Mahamuni was rebuilt after a fire in the 19th century and is architecturally without interest. The gold-covered bronze image is much revered and seen at night with chanting monks and the faithful at its feet is impressive.\n\nThe most interesting thing in the temple, apart from the stalls lining the temple approach, are the six bronze figures in one of the adjacent buildings. They are two of men, one probably a warrior, three of lions, and one of a three-headed elephant (erewar) and are undoubtedly Khmer, possible of the 12th century. They were probably taken by the Siamese at the sack of Angkor in the 15th century and removed to Ayuthia. The Burmese king Bayinnaung took them from Ayuthia when he sacked the city in 1563 to the then capital at Pegu. King Rajagyi of Arakan took them as spoils of war from Pegu and they were taken from Arakan by Bodawpaya in 1784 to Mandalay.\n\nThe journey to Sagaing takes one past the numerous sites of the capitals of the Alaungpaya dynasty which estimated that a new centre would give a new direction to adverse fortune associated with the old. In this way Shwebo was capital from 1752 to 1765, Ava from 1765 to 1783, Amarapura from 1783 to 1823, Ava again", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207851, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 239, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "224\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\n-\n\nthe big business man in his mansion. How far there was in traditional China what sociologists call social mobility is a matter still in hot academic debate; but there can be no doubt that in the kind of Chinese setting of which the New Territories is a twentieth-century sample men were morally entitled to take steps to raise themselves and their descendants—by scholarship, by the accumulation of riches, and by the religious pursuit of good fortune.\n\n56. When a person dies he is first buried in a rough grave from which, after a few years, his bones are removed to be placed in an urn. All, or nearly all, men and women pass through the cycle of burial and removal up to this point. The urns are stored, but those belonging to families for whom geomantic burial has become important and possible are at some point put into new graves. These are the omega-shaped tombs which are so prominent a feature of the southeastern Chinese countryside. They are constructed according to fung shui and may take years to prepare, because the choice of a good site may call for a protracted search and the correct time for entombment may be long delayed by both practical difficulties and religious restrictions. The geomancy of burial is concentrated about this second internment, for although fung shui may well enter into the selection of the first grave and the siting of the urn, it is then of secondary importance, since virtue flows essentially from that which is intended to be a permanent habitation.\n\n57. Sooner or later the geomantically sited grave will bring prosperity to the descendants of the man or woman buried in it. If it does not, then alterations may be made to it or, in the extreme case, it may be moved, 'sooner or later': the geomancer is not usually prepared to tie himself down to a guarantee of quick results. Indeed, with that keen selective scepticism marking the way in which they scrutinise their religion and its practitioners, Chinese joke about the latitude that geomancers allow themselves. 'Like a geomancer', a Cantonese saying goes, 'who cheats you by predicting within eight or ten years.' (If one's own ancestor's grave shows results in, say, five years when the geomancer has stipulated a waiting period of ten years, it is a matter for self-gratulations and gratitude; but somebody else's patience with the passing of the years may be a matter for jest). The lapse of years is necessary for the collection and concentration of the Breaths; they settle in the bones, and in a particularly successful case cause them to glow. From the bones this virtue passes to the living descendants, not in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207857, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 245, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "230\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nrich man from Hong Kong). Similarly, the fung shui of buildings plays a less important role in the city than the country. There are naturally severe limits to what can be done in the urban area to extract the best geomantic possibilities from a given site and to avoid places which have been labelled as bad fung shui risks. By and large, I think we may say that in the city fung shui is a retrospective explanation of fortune rather than a prediction of it, and that in urban conditions far more reliance is placed on the dominant geomantic effects of crucial sites (government offices and other public and semi-public buildings). City-dwellers conducting a stranger around their streets point out to him the residences of rich men which have brought them good fortune or the houses which, because of their unfavourable sites, have exerted a malignant influence on their inhabitants. (A new road, pointing like a deadly arrow to Mr. A's house, brought him disaster. Mr. B enjoys the protection of wind and excluded and static water). In the countryside, in contrast, the geomancy of buildings is both forward-and backward-looking. The height of a new village house must take into account the height and position of the ancestral halls and other houses, in order that the fortunes of other people may not be prejudiced by one's efforts to improve one's own. In a remarkably interesting case being argued out during my stay in the New Territories a disproportion in the two halves of the roofs of new houses was the cause of an agitation which cost the people responsible for the houses much money and frustration. It was held that, the front sections of the roofs being longer than the rear, the future of the inhabitants would be cut short. As for retrospective geomancy, misfortune - disease, death, lack of male children, poor harvests, and so on - may come to be attributed to faults in fung shui which are then put right. The entrance to a wall round the village (wai) may need to be protected by new 'arms' or skewed to alter the orientation of the whole village. A building thought to be too high may be lowered. Again, good or bad fortune may be attributed to earlier fung shui actions for which in fact there is no evidence. It is a common feature of New Territories village organisation that communities which are now solidly or predominantly composed of one clan were in time past made up of several. The disappearance of the weaker ones, through emigration or failure to reproduce, is often said to have followed from their geomantic indiscretion or, as in a case which has impressed itself on me, from the superior geomantic techniques of the survivors. In this case the sole clan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207858, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 246, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n231\n\ninhabiting the village point to the ruined ancestral halls of their late rivals and ascribe their own fortune to the cunning of their ancestor who, at the time when all the ancestral halls were being built in a line, surreptitiously made a slight alteration to the direction in which his own hall was to face. If ever there was such an incident, which I take leave to doubt, the alignment now to be seen bears no trace of it. The jubilant survivors cannot detect it either; they merely assume it to be there.\n\n64. Just as the fung shui (and in consequence the status) of people may be attacked by poaching on grave-sites, so conflict can arise over buildings. X's attempt to build higher than my house is an affront. I say he is ruining my fung shui. I am implying that he has no right to put himself above me. Y has pierced his wall to make a new window. It has caused sickness in the village. We protest against his lack of consideration; he should have taken precautions. Perhaps we are also saying that he should not have done what others do not do. And fung shui objections become intensified when those who have been held to be at fault are outsiders: strangers or the government. For then the community as a whole can be united in its determination to defend its interests.\n\n65. A village is not just the ground on which its fields are made and its houses stand. It is the whole area which, by custom, falls within the control of the community. When the British arrived they acknowledged rights not only to building sites and cultivations, registering these rights in the land records, but also to a wider village territory within which the local population had certain privileges, especially for burying their dead, grazing their beasts, and collecting fuel. Villagers stand by these rights in the sense that intrusion is resented and attempts made to force trespassers to pay for their boldness if they cannot, or it is not desirable that they be, excluded. The immigrant vegetable-grower or poultry-farmer may think that he has acquired the right to put up a shack but he may find himself the centre of a dispute from which he can extricate himself only by paying a sum of money. An industrialist may have all the necessary permits but he may be forced to come to terms with the people in whose area he wishes to operate. The wise immigrant and the wise industrialist make their terms before they begin to build. Similarly, the government undertaking public works may fall foul of objections which are phrased in fung shui language. A hole is being drilled; a child falls sick; the work must stop.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207863, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 251, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "236\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nworking). As long, then, as village life remains the kind of community life it has been, fung shui is likely to continue undiminished. But in fact, life in the New Territories cannot remain unchanged; industrialisation and the blurring of community limits by the penetration of newcomers have already gone too far. So that there is a prospect that, just as in the city today, so in the New Territories tomorrow, geomantic ideas will survive (affecting the behaviour of people striving for status and providing a retrospective explanation of fortune and misfortune) without involving everybody in a sharp geomantic response to a challenge to his rights.\n\n71. My analysis, as I have stressed, is provisional, and I should certainly hope that it will be checked by later research and against the experience of administrators. Once again, I should like to suggest the possibility of District Officers systematising the data they have in their files, so that, by comparing the situation in different areas and at different points in time, we may get a clearer picture of what is afoot and the likely direction of change. Of course, any field study by an anthropologist which sets out to analyse the life of a community will almost certainly produce case material on fung shui, but there would be no point in suggesting that the subject be made the centre of an extended anthropological enquiry unless a specialist in Chinese religion were available and willing to undertake the task. There is certainly a need for a broad enquiry into religious life in the New Territories—ancestor worship, cults, spirit-mediumship, temples, and so on—but it would take a mature and experienced research worker to do it.\n\n72. There is a third and final problem I propose to discuss at some length: emigration and its effects. It is generally assumed that there are some 20,000 Hong Kong men in the United Kingdom at the present time, most of them in the restaurant trade. (The figure may be larger; the head of the biggest travel agency in the New Territories puts it at 25,000). Most of these men are from the New Territories. In addition, men have gone to other parts of the world to seek a living. It is known that the money remitted home is a sizeable portion of the annual income of the New Territories. I write without a copy of the 1961 census before me, and I am unable to calculate very accurately how large a proportion the emigrants must form of the relevant sector of the population; but if we remember (a) that very few of the emigrants are men from the city,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207964, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 3, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "172\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nSixty-five years after the event, it is now quite difficult to capture the community spirit that was demonstrated in the renovation of the T'in Hau Temple that made it the centre of worship for much of this area. Apparently, the merchants of Sai Kung had just had two years of unexpected good fortune. At the outbreak of World War I, all vessels entering or leaving Hong Kong harbour were required by law to report to the Royal Navy's Examination Service. For reasons that can only be surmised, many junks that had previously gone to Hong Kong harbour approached Sai Kung Market for supplies, and as a result, Saam Shing and T'aai Shing especially made a substantial fortune.33 The two shops led in the renovation of the temple, paying a hundred dollars each.\n\nFollowing Saam Shing and T'aai Shing, Tak Shing donated seventy dollars, and San Shun Cheung, Fong T'ung Shing, Kwong Tak Lung, T'ung Hing, and Ts'ui Mau Fung all thirty dollars each. In addition, T'aai Shing and Saam Shing donated the couplets that were hung outside the doors of the temple. These were written by Chan Pak T'o, the much respected Tung Koon scholar who resided in Kowloon City and who was known to the Chans of Ho Chung. Several years later, Ling Shin Chung, owner of San Shun Cheung, also donated a wooden board to be hung in the centre of the main doorway.3\n\n34\n\nThe principal donors for the renovation of the T'in Hau Temple became the local body that was in charge of the affairs of the Market. The term kaifong was soon used for this organization. At one time, Lei Ling of T'aai Shing was the chairman. Ling Shin Chung was also chairman at another time. The chairman was assisted by a committee, the members of which were known as the chik lei. Whenever a meeting had to be called, the chairman asked the temple keeper of the T'in Hau Temple to distribute to the chik lei bamboo chits on which their names had been written. The meetings were held in the T'in Hau Temple.\n\nOne of the most important institutions of any Chinese rural market was the management body that was set up to keep the common scale. Every year, the kaifong committee auctioned the right to manage the scale. Subject to the payment of a fee to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208062, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS (下壇)\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nThe first thing to be seen on entering Chinese temples in Hong Kong and Macau, even those in which a murky half-light obscures the view, is the main altar in the middle of the far end of the main hall. What is rarely seen however, even after a stroll around, is the “Altar at which prayers are offered to avert calamities” (避災壇). This is usually an even dingier ground-level alcove inside the back of which is pasted a large green sheet of paper bearing the titles in white, of five or seven spirits all of whom need placating or propitiating as needs arise. The altar often bears the less colourful titles of the \"Under Altar\" (下壇), the \"Yin and Yang Hall\" (陰陽堂), and in very rare instances, more so in Macau than in Hong Kong, the \"Five Demon Altar\" (五鬼壇).\n\nUnder Altars, only to be found in Cantonese, Hakka and Boat People's Taoist folk religion temples and never in Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, are usually situated under or between the main and secondary altars at ground level. They consist of a wooden or stone open-fronted \"box\" about three to four feet high, three feet wide and two feet six deep and are illuminated, if one can use such a term, by a 15 watt dark red electric bulb. In five temples in Hong Kong and Macau the Under Altar was in a corner beside the main altar, but without any top or covering. In one or two temples such altars may be found, again at ground level (this seems to be the one almost inflexible requirement) but without a top, against the side wall about half way down the main hall facing the centre, or alone in a separate side hall.\n\nThere are several different reasons given why people pray at these altars. The most common is the wish to avert ill-fortune of any form and not just major disasters, as the title of the altar “Calamity\" (災) suggests. An elderly lady pointing at one devotee said that he had just told her that he had placed a stick of incense before the Under Altar to avert losses at the races on the morrow. Another, she said, thought her child was sickening for something, and had placed ten cents before the White Tiger image and said a brief word to the deity asking for the illness to be averted.\n\nPlates 20 - 31 at end of this volume illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208063, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "86 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\nIt is generally understood that the \"spirits who counter or cope with misfortunes”, and whose names appear on the green sheet of paper, are the main occupants of the Under Altar and others who share occupancy are there on sufferance. Only two of the five or seven spirits of the Under Altar appear in image form, the Local Wealth God and the Five Demons. The remainder are represented only as titles listed in columns. \n\nThe green sheet of paper on which the Under Altar spirits are listed is either pasted, or framed and hung, on the rear wall of the Under Altar. The titles, apart from the two outside ones which are standard, can be in any order. The local Wealth God, however, seems most frequently to be the title in the centre column. The lists which are very similar on both sides of the Pearl River estuary, are as follows: \n\nRight hand column: \n\nLeft hand column: \n\nCentre column: \n\n\"The Boy who averts calamities (or suffering) on the right\" (右使化難童郎) or (右使化難童郎) \n\n\"The Boy who averts misfortune on the left\"(左便消災童郎) \n\nThe Local Wealth God who distinguishes right from wrong both in the Human and Under Worlds (He has the title of \"Cheng Chen\") (正真財君) \n\nThe other columns are as follows: \n\nThe Two Great Spirit Generals who avert misfortune(冰消瓦解二大神將) The Five Demons who bring fortune (五鬼郎君運財童子) \n\nThe Two Gods of Mourning (二位客星君) \n\nThe White Ape (Monkey), Star God, the Prince of the Palace of the East (東宮太子白猿(猴)星君) \n\nMarshal Yin, The King of Thunder who averts the hundred sufferings/calamities (百解雷王殷大元帥)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208064, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n87\n\nOf these eight titles, Marshal Yin, a famous character in mythology, is a God in his own right in the Taoist folk religion pantheon. He is to be seen only in one temple in the heart of rural New Territories in image form, where, unconnected with any Under Altar, he is one of four generals guarding a major deity.\n\nOthers who regularly appear in the Under Altar and are the deities who share the occupancy but in image form, are the Local Wealth God and the White Tiger. Others who occasionally appear on top of, near to, or in the Under Altar include the Green Horse, Marshal Chao and a second demonic figure similar to the Local Wealth God.\n\nThe Local Wealth God (地方財神)\n\nThe major image, sometimes called the Wealth God of the Under Altar (下壇財神) or the spirit of the Location (地方神) is usually alone though very, very occasionally he may be accompanied by a somewhat similar image. A Hong Kong Cantonese writer who lived during the last century, Wu Yen-jen, in the collection “Ch'ing Tai Wu Yen-jen Yu Yen Chi” (清代吳恩仁寓言集) calls this local deity the \"Local Demon\" (地方惡魔), a description which is more honest than the anodyne and unprovocative term \"spirit\" used nowadays.\n\nThe Wealth God of the Location is a gaunt middle-aged man dressed in mourning apparel, ill-fitting robes of sacking (hessian). He has a protruding tongue and a tall dunce's cap bearing the message vertically on the front \"Fortune at one glance\" (一覽生財). His face is haggard, often with tears of blood coursing down his cheeks. Most Local Wealth Gods clutch palm leaf fans in their left hand, whilst others carry either furled umbrellas, wands with tattered edges raised above their heads in their right hands, have their arms full of paper charms, or a string of silver coins strung around their necks. The majority of images are roughly made of folded coloured papers, and bear strips of white cloth as a sign of mourning. One, in Macau, had a hessian veil stretched across the face \"to prevent him from eating worshipper's “luck\"\", so the keeper said!\n\nThe Local Wealth God is located at ground level because he is neither fit nor qualified to stand on the altar. According to a God Carver in Macau, he stands in the Under Altar for the want...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208066, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS \n\n89 \n\nhe tries sufficiently hard enough, all other demons too. His hempen robes, they say, are not the same as those worn by mourners but are, in themselves, a charm having the power to drive away demons. The Local Wealth God also secures the safety, if so petitioned, of those who have witnessed such misfortunes as a suicide, a killing, a funeral or a fatal accident, (all of which release, or involve, roaming spirits). The witness need only visit the temple, offer a prayer and incense to the Local Wealth God for his continued safety to be assured. In some temples he is prayed to by relatives on the 49th day after a death, when green and white paper flowers are thrown over him after being taken from the hair of mourners; a sign that mourning is over. It used to be that only filial sons performed this ritual, but nowadays it has become common for any relative to take part. \n\nThe Local Wealth God, customarily, is only given plain unflavoured boiled rice and though he may be offered ordinary meat, either cooked or uncooked, he is never offered red-dyed sacrificial meat. \n\nThe Five Demons \n\nWe move on now to one of the less frequently seen groups, the Five Demons, (五鬼), which in one Macau temple were known as the Five Demon Spirits (五鬼神). Their full title is \"The Five Demon Lads who change fortune” (五鬼變財). The Five are masters each of one of the five points of the compass. (The Chinese look upon the centre as the fifth direction), and each is separately known by his direction. For example, the one for the East is called the \"Eastern Chia Yi Five Demon Stellar Deity\" (東方甲乙五鬼星君) \n\nFive Demons are feared as injurious spirits who need constant propitiation. When offended, however unwittingly, they must instantly be offered a large and expensive gift, and their forgiveness sought. In one small temple in Macau they were described as the five servants of the Wealth God, and are prayed to both for \"unexpected money”, and also for a good marriage (bringing in a good dowry). \n\nThey are depicted in the Under Altar in a circle as five standing individual images in human likeness, sometimes men and sometimes women, facing inward. They have been seen once circling an oil lamp consisting of a saucer in which a wick lies floating in the oil, \n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208071, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "94\n\nL\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\ncause of their infidelity behind. (White cords have no separate meaning according to the temple keepers concerned).\n\nThe larger and more permanent Green Horses are offered fresh vegetables which are not placed in or near their mouths but, rather frustratingly for the horses, balanced on their heads. The rider of the Green Horse is known as the \"Nobleman of the Green Horse\" Kuei Jen (†A), and although he is rarely depicted save on paper charms it is accepted that they are a pair who work together and never separately. A keeper of the Stone Nullah Lane temple in Hong Kong claimed that the Nobleman (the Kuei Jen) and his Green Horse are helpful persons to whom people turn in time of need. He then referred to the opposite, the Hsiao Jen, the “mean one\" who grumbles, carries tittle-tattle and is envious. The latter causes you unnecessary trouble such as loss of money. The helpful Nobleman shows you the way to fortune and the easy route through life. The beating of the \"mean ones”, described earlier, is to discard the bad luck such people bring.\n\nA few devotees, only encountered in Shamshuipo, believe that the Green Horse is capable of providing academic success for members of the devotee's family, as they reason that a nobleman on a horse must be both well-educated and an official, and that his support must inevitably bring success to youthful scholars.\n\nA few devotees pray to Green Horse before a journey and again after a safe return. An extension of prayer for the traveller's safety was described in one small temple in Kowloon where the keeper said that the Green Horse is a divine messenger who is asked to visit and inform close relatives far away, of the sender's well-being and bring back tidings of their lives and aspirations. The keeper rather surprisingly added that it was also his understanding that if children failed to obey their parents, the elders would petition the Horse to knock some discipline into them! In another temple, however, a keeper was quite adamant that the Green Horse is only a messenger used by the Gods to send messages to each other, and must never be approached by humans. Finally, in Shamshuipo and in Wanchai, the Green Horse and the Nobleman are prayed to by the out-of-work, as the couple have the reputation of speedily being able to find suitable employment for devotees.\n\nThere are other similar horses which should not be confused with the Green Horse. The first is the steed ridden by Kuan Ti, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208164, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n187 \n\nThe villagers turned to a variety of other employment; in Govt. service (because of obligations felt to and claimed by the villagers), in Kowloon, locally and even abroad. \n\nThe villagers decreased in numbers after the move and this was attributed to ill-fortune (bad fung-shui in their new houses), disease, and the rigours of the Japanese occupation and probably, too, to the traumatic shock of the uprooting from their old houses. It led directly to the neglect of the 3 ancestral halls erected to one side of the new village and to the establishment of a church of the Hong Kong Basel Mission in a converted village house just after the war. The halls were requisitioned by the Japanese during the Occupation and the altars and ancestral tablets put out, but thereafter they were not replaced in the period of pessimism, eroded spirits and lack of faith (and of hard cash), and they have not been put back since. Consequently, there have long been no ancestral halls in operation, despite the existence in a reasonable state of these large and carefully constructed buildings which now house the kindergarten of the village school. \n\nThe halls still show, in good preservation, much of the decoration worked by skilled craftsmen in stucco and paint on the interior and exterior of the buildings and are evidence not only of the conservatism and loving care of the village leadership of the time but also of the continued existence at that time in the Hong Kong region of a body of craftsmen capable of fine work in the traditional local style. \n\nThe old village houses number some 120. As many of them are still in their original or slightly altered state, they too, show the interesting style and extensive decoration of the masons and craftsmen who built these to the demands of the villagers. In contrast to this tasteful and substantial style of reprovisioning, there is a group of single-storey white walled structures to the S.W. of the main settlement. This is said to have predated the houses built by the villagers and to have been constructed by the Hong Kong Government to serve as examples of a planned rehousing programme. The offer was declined, and the present 2 storey houses were constructed instead with public funds (and perhaps additional money from the village). Today, these earlier buildings are used to house Govt. workers still employed in the locality.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208279, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 3, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "182\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nwas uncommon, though, for women to go to school, and the only schools the boat-people went to were the \"winter schools\" that operated only in the winter months.56\n\nPupils who did well in the village schools could enter Sung Chen School in Sai Kung Market, but better off families preferred to send their children to Nam T'au, or even Canton. Graduates of Sung Chen could try to enter the Government schools in Kowloon, or the Tai Po Teachers Training School. A minority went on to the Roman Catholic school in T'am Shui, and it was possible to go from there to Roman Catholic schools in Canton.57\n\nSchools were locally organized, but from 1913, the Hong Kong Government gave a selected few a subsidy. By 1922, seventeen schools were subsidized in Sai Kung. From the wide selection of people who graduated from the Sung Chen School, it is clear that the contribution of the Roman Catholic Church to the education of the pre-war Sai Kung population was notable.\n\nMedical facilities\n\nAt Sai Kung Market, traditional doctors and herbal medicines were available, and some western medicines too, from the Government Medical Officer who came here regularly. In 1934, a Government dispensary was established, where a midwife was permanently stationed. Nonetheless, for most illnesses, villagers relied on treatments that were available closer to home. Some villagers had studied traditional medical texts and could offer treatments. \"Old ladies\" who served as midwives could readily be found. Medicinal herbs were gathered from the hillsides as alternatives or supplements to what could be bought in the market. Religious cures were not infrequently resorted to.58\n\nWritten literature\n\nMost villages had written lineage genealogies, handbooks for various purposes (medicine, etiquette, village regulations, fung shui, fortune telling, worship), written land deeds, account books both in connection with ancestral land and of individual household expenses, and occasionally books of songs to be sung on various occasions. Novels were uncommon, but the more literate read printed texts of the Cantonese songs known as the naam yam. Many villagers would not have been sufficiently literate to understand all of these texts, but in almost all villages", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208286, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 10, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "189\n\nalthough military power was much needed at the time. In fact, it was quite ineffective against the bandits. Several months into the occupation, the office was burnt by the bandit Wong Chuk Ts'eng.70\n\nMr.\n\nThe burning of the Wai Ch'i Wooi was well-known. Chan Tsz K'eung, of Sai Kung Market, thought that a Japanese spy had been sent to investigate the guerrillas in Sai Kung and that this was a reprisal. Mr. Lei Yun Shau thought that it was due to a dispute between Wong Chuk Ts'eng and the Wai Ch'i Wooi. Mr. Loh Kai Faat of Kau Sai thought that Wong Chuk Ts'eng, having made a fortune from banditry, was wavering between looting and working for the guerrillas; the Wai Ch'i Wooi, however, was on the verge of deciding to capture him. Mr. Sham Kin K'eung, who spent most of his war years in Tai P'ang, said that Wong had fought on the side of the Nationalist forces in Tam Shui at Pak Mong Fa. He was a bandit and a smuggler who operated from Sham Chun to Wai Chau, and he had many small groups working under him. Mr. Sham thought it unlikely that Wong would have come to Sai Kung himself, and believed it must have been one of these groups working for him that was responsible for burning the Wai Ch'i Wooi.\n\nIt is not at all clear what the disputes between the Wai Ch'i Wooi and the bandits amounted to. Several months after the burning of the Wai Ch'i Wooi, Mr. Lei Shiu Yam resigned as chairman, and the post was given to Mr. Hui Mei Naam of Lai Chi Chong. This change might not have had anything to do with the burning of the Wooi. Several months into the occupation, the Japanese Government could afford to strengthen its presence in the districts. On July 20, a new system of district administration was promulgated, dividing the whole of Hong Kong and the New Territories into twenty-eight districts, Sai Kung being one of them. Each one of these districts was represented by a K'ui Ching Shoh (District Administration Office), and this name came to be used in place of Wai Ch'i Wooi. The extent of the district was the entire peninsula east of Ma On Shan, including not only the villages from Tseng Lan Shue to Man Yee Wan, but also those north of Pak Tam Chung, those in Shap Sz Heung, and those near Hang Hau. The K'ui Ching Shoh office was set up at the Sung Chen School, and at about this time, a small contingent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208297, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 21, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "in China we have taken steps to initiate a Society tour to major cultural areas particularly Luo yang (Long Men caves), the Gong Xian caves and Anyang (all in Henan), Da Tong; Tai Yuan and the Yun Gang caves (all in Shansi) and Sian. It seems unlikely that a visit can be arranged before early 1979. Meanwhile interested members can visit Kwangchow and/or Kweilin by joining the regular tours offered by major travel agencies in Hong Kong.\n\nPublications\n\nDuring the year the Journals for both 1975 and '76 were published and distributed, and Dr. Hayes, our editor, has already assembled most of the material for the 1977 Journal. We are very fortunate to have Dr. Hayes as our editor. Editing requires a great deal of time and work and despite his own heavy responsibilities as Town Manager for Tsuen Wan he has continued to work to bring our Journals up to time on publication. This has been no mean effort. I would also like to take this opportunity of congratulating Dr. Hayes on the publication of his own book based on his Ph.D. thesis and entitled The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside,\n\nThe Photographic Survey\n\nWork is also continuing on our intended publication of a book of annotated photographs of Hong Kong, in connexion with the Photographic Survey project of the Society. For the benefit of our more recent members, this survey was started in 1974 with the object of making a photographic record of Hong Kong as it appears today and before all the older buildings disappear beneath the swell of redevelopment. This record includes not only buildings but also street scenes and shots of such everyday sights—but for how long one cannot say—as hawkers' stalls, small workshops, fortune-tellers' booths. Such things have of course been photographed before, but rarely with full documentation of date or place. Work on the Survey has been greatly delayed since the departure in 1976 of Mrs. Edmunds who was responsible for organizing the files of prints and negatives. We have been fortunate, however, in finding two new volunteers to take over: Mrs. Mona Davies and Mrs. Maurisette Mellor, to both of whom I take this opportunity of expressing our gratitude. The collection is now taking shape. Nine schedules have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208352, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "60\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nlocal rustic habits and ways of life. The Chinese ethnographers have left us with a treasure of information, a vast ocean of data which is for us to combine in various ways in attempts at making more systematic sense out of them.\n\nOne current anthropological interest is in the development of ‘automaton’ theories in cultural investigation. Such an approach may be of considerable help for the historically minded anthropologist who aims at an interpretative reconstruction of a possible cultural system, and would account for and relate given data (few as they may be) to each other in an interesting way. We cannot resort to discovery procedures as true discoveries will be rare. If we wish to make progress which is not tied up with accidental luck (although we may still need good fortune) or diligence in archival research (which still is of fundamental importance) we have to construct hypotheses. Thus, the basic question we as anthropologists, looking at traditional Chinese society, should pose is: What sort of cultural system would produce such acts as those which have been recorded by Chinese chroniclers? The features of this productive system we must make up ourselves and we must design it so that it not only accounts for one particular instance, or a case, but for all possible cases. We must take a synthetic view which reduces the occurrence of exemptions to a minimum, and accommodates for local and social variation within the generative system that is our hypothesis.\n\nWe have to guess at traditional China. Our guesses may go wrong, especially as we sometimes have precious little to guess about; but as long as there are no other and better explanations at hand, for instance explanations which are more inclusive with regard to data, we may feel temporarily satisfied with such hunches as seem to make some sense out of the scattered and few data. This sense should add something which goes beyond what the data qua data say. The present essay is such an attempt at understanding some aspects of the traditional Chinese calendar. By an examination of the Qingming rituals I wish to offer an explanation of the various conventions and institutions of the spring celebrations, which accounts systematically for the descriptive ethnographic data, and contributes to an explanation of the Chinese festival calendar, the whole string of ritual events repeated cyclically from year to year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208409, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\nI\n\n117\n\nThe distinctive feature of the family in China is its cohesiveness. One finds in it a unity of energy, of time and of space that has almost no parallel in any Western institution or in Western society. In fact, it is difficult for Occidentals, long trained in a theory of individualism, adequately to conceive of the strength of the family tie in China. Individualism induces in our society a centrifugal force rather than the centripetal pull characteristic to Chinese life. The intensity of this family cohesiveness must be emphasized because it explains many aspects of the Chinese family which bear directly upon the question of village government in China.\n\nUnity of energy is forcibly indicated by a consideration of the economic organization of the family in the face of a terrific struggle for existence which is characteristic of rural life in many parts of China. One might suppose that so intense a battle for a bare subsistence would tend to make every individual fend for himself. Except in the most extreme circumstances this is the opposite of the case. The entire productive energy of the individual is expended for the family unit, and all family resources are pooled for the common benefit. Even those individuals who reluctantly migrate for the dual purpose of adding to the family income and reducing the number of mouths to be fed from the family land, do so for the sake of the family good, and are as much members of it still as those remaining at home. Even the sale of female children, which undoubtedly still occurs during severe famines, can be partly explained as a sacrifice for the good of the whole group.\n\nAnother example of unity of energy is the well-known fact of the complete backing which a promising young scholar might have expected from his family under the old examination system. There was a thoroughly utilitarian motive in this support, for the scholar, once he made good, was expected to bring both honors and material gain to his family. The organization of many crafts on a purely monopolistic family basis, where the whole economic fortune of\n\n1 The enormous increase in population during the Ch'ing dynasty, with the attendant disastrous famines in almost all parts of China, has proved to be a force strong enough to exert a loosening effect upon the cohesiveness of the family system. This tendency has been, however, not toward the entire destruction of the traditional family system, but toward decreasing the size of the family unit. Cf. Buck, J. Lossing; Chinese Farm Economy, p. 335.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208414, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "122\n\nC. MARTIN WILBUR\n\nBesides his power as disciplinarian in his immediate family, the Chia-chang has much influence as an arbitrator of disputes in which members of the \"larger family\" are concerned. The significant aspect of this fact is that it provides a basis and a training within the family for the larger discipline of the village group. This training is absolutely essential for a mode of government which rests, not so much upon a system of law as in the West, but more upon custom and usage. The significance is enhanced, moreover, when it is remembered that the Chinese family is often a larger unit than that of the Occident, extending over several generations and including many more individuals than those comprised of the sex family alone.1 This large group offers a training in self-restraint and discipline which the smaller sex family does not require and does not afford.\n\nThe ethical and religious responsibilities of the Chia-chang are also significant. He is the perpetuator of customary ethics. Most of the important values of Chinese life arise from the family group, and they are respected because of their power to strengthen the familistic system. These values the Chia-chang constantly reinforces by his words and deeds. As religious head of the family he performs the rites of ancestor worship. His authority to perform these ceremonies rests upon his position as oldest male descendant of the group of ancestors being worshipped. These rites are important because they are calculated to bring good fortune to the family. Secondarily they serve to solidify the family group, and also to enhance the moral position of the Chia-chang.\n\nThe duties of the Chia-chang in the various fields described - administrative and financial, moral, ethical and religious - correspond exactly to the several functions of the village elders. These men are the administrative, judicial and ethical leaders of the village. And it is important to note that exactly those forces which cooperate to give the Chia-chang his authority, likewise, but to a lesser degree, enhance the position of the elders.\n\n1 Buck found that in the rural families included in his survey, sixty-four percent of all families are of the \"larger family\" type, and that the relatives in these \"larger families\", excluding those of the marriage group of the male head, bear to the total population a proportion of 45.3 percent. He believes, however, that the system is breaking down, and states that the increasing population in relation to the comparatively stationary tillable area is probably chiefly responsible for this tendency. Buck; op. cit., p. 335.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208487, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n195 \n\nGuo's cult centre was at Phoenix Mountain Monastery (4 +) near Nan An, a county capital some 15 miles inland from Chuan Zhou, the prefectural capital on the coast of Fujian province opposite Taiwan. Though Chuan Zhou lies only forty miles up the coast as the crow flies from Amoy, before the advent of buses travel between those two cities took several days. Immigrants to South-east Asia took the Saintly Guo with them, and wherever his temple is to be found you can be certain that the local populace includes a fair percentage of Nan An, Chuan Zhou and Amoy settlers. \n\nHe is usually seen on altars, as he is on the Hong Kong altar, sitting beside his consort and with his parents behind him and two unnamed male servants before him. \n\nHis festivals are celebrated on his birthday the 22nd of the second lunar month, and on the 22nd of the eighth lunar month, the day he was whisked away to Heaven and achieved Tao. \n\nGuo has two or three legends describing his origins and life. Some readers will have heard all or parts of these differing legends connected with various deities. The main one relates how Guo was born in Nan An district during the Sung Dynasty where he grew up with his poverty-stricken widowed mother. She worked as a maid for a rich but unpopular man who, as did all very rich heads of families, also employed his own feng shui specialist (a form of fortune adviser) who provided advice and plans for each day. The feng shui specialist foretold that the child Guo who worked as a goatherd, would have a great future, and would inherit everything from the rich man, as Guo's family had been pious, honest and good for three generations. The question posed by the rich man after he had heard this prognostication from the feng shui specialist was \"would Guo prefer to be a great man for one generation\", or \"ashes and incense forever?\" (In another version it was Emperor for one generation and Duke or King for many generations). The feng shui specialist secretly explained to Guo which was the best plot in the rich man's acres, the plot with the most auspicious characteristics. Here he was to bury the remains of his dead father. To obtain the plot Guo indentured himself to the rich man for a fixed period without the rich man realizing the auspicious nature of the site. After years of hard work Guo was able to bury his father in the plot, earning the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208489, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 213, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n197 \n\nleg down and right leg bent, and with round protruding eyes fixed on the horizon. \n\nNews of his sainthood quickly spread throughout Chuan Zhou, as did the word that he now had great spiritual powers. A small temple was built for him and his fame slowly spread far and wide. He helped and advised people, in their dreams, and his popularity was such that the title of King was awarded him. He did not always answer people's prayers himself as he had a small staff of spirits as assistants. One day a very elderly couple were promised a child by a spirit assistant in his absence. When Guo returned and heard of the rash promise he realized there was only one way to fulfil it and had himself reincarnated as their child. His temple fell into disuse, and for 21 years it lay empty. A fortune teller told the old couple that their only child would pass the Imperial examinations with very high marks. Whilst a student, “Guo” (though not now of the Guo family) cured the Emperor's mother who was very ill and for this he was given the title of Guang Ze Zun Wang.* He was warned, however, never to touch anything black as this would result in his death. The award of a 1st Class Civil Examination result required him to attend the Imperial Palace at the Capital in scholar's clothes, and as he had been created a magistrate his uniform was black! He donned it, returned to Nan An in triumph but because he had touched black, dropped dead on his return. \n\nA beggar asked \"Guo's” mother for money. When she replied that she had none and was in mourning for her recently dead son, the beggar said that he had just seen “Guo” riding a white horse, and moreover \"Guo\" had promised him a stated amount of money which he had told the beggar was under his pillow. When \"Guo's” mother looked there was the exact money! \"Guo's\" mother then knew he had not died but had returned to his temple. She followed, instituted prayers and incense burning before the deity who now bore the title of Guang Ze given to him by the Emperor. \n\nA Taoist priest's daughter fell in love with the image of Guang Ze in the temple and said she wanted to marry him. The image heard her and from then on, each day whilst the daughter was washing the family's clothes in the stream, she saw a jade bangle lying on red linen in a bowl floating near her. On her mother's \n\n*This literally means the Saintly King of the Wide Marsh.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208491, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 215, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n199 \n\nPopularly known as FAN Yi-lang (-), his full title is 'The Great Immortal Master FAN' (FAN Ta Hsien Shih) (#14 BF). His birthday is celebrated in the village from the 12th to the 17th of the fifth lunar month, with his birthday proper falling on the 16th day. \n\nLegend claims that he was one of three brothers, believed to have lived near the county capital at Pao An (7) formerly Hsin An (†✯) (just north of the present Sino-Hong Kong border), where he and his brothers were bowl makers. FAN Yi-lang however, through his diligent cultivation of the Tao, achieved immortality. \n\nAbout 200 years ago the people of Mui Lung near Pao An (then Hsin An) moved to what became known as Wun Yiu in Hong Kong, where they continued their trade of bowl making. Most villagers bear the surname MA, and at that time they brought FAN's image with them because, as a bowl maker and an Immortal, who but he could look better after their interests? Although bowl making is no longer carried on in the village, evidence of it remains in a pile of shards and moulds lying just outside the temple. (For a note on the Wun Yiu Kilns see JHKBRAS15(1975):291). \n\nFAN continues to serve the villagers well and is consulted on a variety of topics, notably on auspicious dates for commencement of local building projects. The original image was destroyed some years ago, and the present one is a copy carved in Kowloon. \n\nIt has been said that FAN is the patron of bowl makers and by extension, of potters. This is not so. FAN is simply the local deity of a village which used to be involved in bowl making, and was a bowl maker himself. The general patrons of potters, in eastern China at least, were the twin Immortals of Fortune, Ho Ho Erh Hsien (和合二仙). \n\n(An extract from a work at present in hand, The Gods on the Altars of Hong Kong and Macau by Keith G. Stevens). \n\nHong Kong 1979 \n\nKEITH STEVENS", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208687, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n117\n\n18 in all. We naturally regret losing our genial and efficient cook, but we rejoice with him in his good fortune. We are also sorry to lose Dr. Molthen, that genial friend of all Maryknollers.\n\n5- Eighteen leave Camp for freedom, such as it may be in Hong Kong. Father Meyer undertakes the cooking of tiffin, while Father Walter will vie with him in giving us a tasty supper, and as both have reputations in the culinary line, we anticipate some good things. Father Troesch will, as usual, preside in our own kitchen, giving us breakfast, and occasional tidbits from his larder. Mr. Wood will take over the baking of bread for the dwindling American community. A death in bed from heart failure today in the Indian quarters. Mr. Wong, our genial Superintendent, leaves today.\n\n6- League softball games start this evening, the Americans winning 5 to 3. The British are learning rapidly and some day they may make the Americans work for their laurels.\n\n8- Our new cooks are doing splendidly. They are trying manfully to give us less stew and gravy and more meat in a substantial form, but today Father Meyer's stew had a mystifying flavor which turned out to be creosote! Figure that one out! An amateur show tonight with a few prizes in the form of tins of jam and sardines, etc.\n\n10- Mr. Chester Bennett, our present Council Chairman, and three Britishers get permission to leave the Camp. It is a strange life; some internees are still arriving and other dis-internees are leaving. Today some ninety English nurses from the Bowen Road Hospital in Hong Kong come into Camp. Softball: Americans 27, British 3.\n\n11- Mr. Bennett and three Britishers leave at 3:00 p.m. Another death in Camp. We get four parcels from town, but not all food as some of the packages contained prayer books and pamphlets for Catholic Action.\n\n12- This evening the Americans played the Married quarters in softball and won, 9 to 6. The British public is also taking more interest now in softball, and the crowds in the evening are constantly increasing. There seems to be a little more life around the Camp also. Canteen prices: one can of condensed, or rather, evaporated milk, $16.00. White sugar $4.00 a pound.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208840, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 2, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "201\n\nI would like to add two more passages to this note, both of which came my way after I wrote the above. The first passage was kindly given me by James Hayes, who was given it by Mr. Ho Kei Fook, of Kei Ling Ha village, born in 1928, and educated (1937-1941) in the neighbouring village of Tseng Tau, previously village representative, and Vice-Chairman of the North Saikung Rural Committee. The second passage I came across in Ch'en T'ieh-erh5, \"Huang Hsiao-yang yu Pai-e t'an\" (Huang Hsiao-yang and the White Goose Pond), in Kuang-tung wen-hsien chi-k'an vol. 15 no. 2 (1985) pp. 60-62.\n\nPassage 1\n\n\"It is said that in the Ming dynasty there was this man Ho Tsoh Shing who obtained a wonder book. The book recorded thirty-six grave sites at the mouth of the dragon. [The family] buried there would achieve great wealth for its descendants and even produce an emperor. Ho Tsoh Shing was already an official at court, holding the post of Minister of the LeftE. But his mother did not have the good fortune to support this achievement. When his wife was pregnant, his mother scolded her saying, 'My son is an official at court many mountains and seas away, so how is it that you are pregnant?' The daughter-in-law said, 'He comes back every night'. What happened was that every night Ho Tsoh Shing rode home on a bamboo-rigged flying horse, and early in the morning he rode the flying horse back to court. The daughter-in-law said, 'If you don't believe me, you can hide by the courtyard tonight and watch him as he comes in'. [This the mother did] and saw that that was what really happened. The horse stopped at the courtyard, and the mother, being curious, rode on it. The horse could not fly, because it was bogged down by the woman's breath. When Ho Tsoh Shing rose the next morning to go to court, the horse was still bogged down by woman's breath. So immediately, he went to cut some bamboo to rig another horse to fly to court. He was late. The emperor was in his court calling the rolls. When he came to Ho Tsoh Shing's name, Ho answered from the outer court [in such a loud voice] that it shook the emperor. The emperor then suspected that Ho Tsoh Shing was scheming to take the throne, and other officials also made many comments. They found out that Ho Tsoh Shing possessed the thirty-six grave sites at the dragon's mouth. When this was known, Ho Tsoh Shing was killed by the emperor, and the fungshui was\n\nto", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208871, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\nfortune slips and interpret the fortune slips.\n\n5\n\nth\n\nCompetition between Buddhists and Daoists for the support of devotees led to grander and bigger temples. Small village shrines and temples, not in the same league, did not need to compete. Competition for devotees also led to the present circumstances in which rural shrines and temples are comparatively small and unkempt whereas their urban equivalents, though not much larger, have had to be made more attractive, usually by offering unique deities and services in order to wean devotees to their particular altars.\n\nIn Hong Kong and Macau there are a number of temples patronised primarily by people of a particular class, sub-ethnic group or occupational calling. Devotees tend to patronise their local temple irrespective of who the deities are, though they may be attracted to a more distant temple by a particular deity famous for his specialised power and efficacy. The latter might be a god whose cult is long standing and whose characteristics are unique and pertinent to the devotee's requirements. He might however be a new star, rising suddenly amid great publicity, only to wane again but not necessarily to disappear completely.\n\nLocation of temples\n\nPrior to the anti-superstition campaign in China in 1928, traditional temples were scattered across China in their tens of thousands. Not quite so abundant in Hong Kong, they are to be found squeezed in among high-rise buildings in the city and among houses in villages, and may be free-standing or joined to other structures. But apart from monasteries, rarely does one appear beyond the village bounds and when it does it is usually derelict or almost so. Buddhist, Daoist and popular religion temples do not usually materialize as full-blown two-court buildings with numerous images, large and small. Their development has been a natural progression from the small shrine on a hillside, probably beneath the overhang of or attached to a living rock, at the base of a large old tree, or in many cases inshore from a sandy beach of a bay with an easy landing for boat people. If the shrine is well attended, the protective construction around the small shrine will grow as years pass, until eventually it reaches the maximum size that devotees can afford to build and maintain.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208940, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "70 \n\nJOHN VILLIERS \n\n\"pect our virtue\". Through this gate the Chinese passed the food and other supplies needed by the inhabitants, but at other times they sealed the gate with strips of paper, allowing into China only those few Portuguese officials with authorisation and sending to Macau only customs officers. \n\nThe Portuguese in Macau were first given some official recognition by the Chinese government in 1582 when the new Viceroy of Canton and Kwangsi summoned Macau's chief officials to his court. They came with 4,000 cruzados worth of presents—velvets, crystals, mirrors and so on—and were informed that foreigners could continue to inhabit Macau provided they remained subject to the laws of the Empire.10 \n\nBy 1585 the settlement had acquired full city status with its own municipal council (Senado da Câmara). The Senado was dominated by the casados, Portuguese who had retired from the service of the crown, married and settled permanently in Macau. These acted not only as agents for the Chinese traders but traded on their own account in pepper, cloves, sandalwood and other goods from the Indonesian islands and financed voyages to Manila and to Japan in the so-called Great Ship from Amacon. Macau was not under royal control and was not ruled by fidalgos sent out from Portugal or Goa, so that the interests of the Portuguese government were seldom, if ever, allowed to prevail. The Crown had to be content with a share in the profits from the annual voyages that it financed and the revenues from customs, duties and license fees levied on the merchants.11 \n\nThe overall command of the government of Macau was in the hands of the Captain-major of the Japan voyage, who would spend some months in Macau each year en route to Japan from Goa via Malacca—from one end of the Estado da India to the other. As the Portuguese Crown seldom got more than the commissions and port duties paid in Goa and Malacca, the Captain-major was able to amass a large fortune for himself. He was, however, only permitted to operate a single ship during his term of office so he would ensure that it was the largest ship available. This ship he would load at Goa with Gujerati cottons, chintzes and other Indian textiles, woollen and scarlet cloths, wine, glassware, crystal and Flemish clocks. He would sail with the monsoon in April or May to Malacca, where much of his cargo would be traded for Indonesian spices, camphor and sandalwood and hides from Siam. Thence he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208948, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "78\n\nJOHN VILLIERS\n\ncommercial acumen, of piety and profit. It demonstrates how in Macau as elsewhere in their far-flung empire, the Portuguese desire to win both converts to Christianity and fortunes by trade went hand in hand.\n\nThe Macaonese received the news with \"tears of joy in their eyes, congratulating each other on such a piece of good fortune, especially the families and relatives of the martyrs, all of whom dressed not in mourning but in gala clothes. They did not shut the windows of their houses from grief, but opened them wide, placing many lights in them, and sounding shawms and other musical instruments for many days, singing many tuneful songs as a sign of their joy. It is a most noteworthy thing that, as the welfare, maintenance, and almost the very existence of this city depends chiefly on the Japan trade, if the news that the embassy had failed in its purpose had come without that of this glorious triumph, the citizens of Macau would have been aghast and their spirit would have sunk to their shoes. With this glorious news, however, everyone rejoiced exceedingly, and nobody spoke sadly or showed any sorrow because the trade was not reopened. On the contrary, they all rejoiced in the comforting thought that they had their ambassadors in Heaven, hoping with good reason that through their intercession, God would cast his eyes on that commonweal to save and sustain it, either by restoring the Japan trade or by opening some other way for its preservation\".34\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n1 Tomé Pires Suma Oriental. Trans. and ed. Armando Cortesão. 2 vols. Hakluyt Society 2nd series. LXXXIX, 1944. 1. p. 286.\n\n2 Pires, op cit. 1 pp. 128-134. João de Barros. Da Asia, dos feitos que os Portuguezes fizeram no descubrimento das terras e mares do Oriente. Ed. N. Pagliarini 3 vols. Lisbon, 1777-1778. III. 2. ch. 8.\n\n3 O. H. K. Spate. The Spanish Lake. London, 1979, pp. 147-148.\n\n4 On Sino-Japanese relations and European dealings with the Japanese in the 16th century see C. R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan. University of California Press and Cambridge University Press, 1951, G. Sansom, The Western World and Japan, London 1950, Idem, A History of Japan 1334-1615, London, 1961, J. Murdoch, A History of Japan II. 1542-1651, London 1949, M. Cooper S.J. (ed.), The Southern Barbarians. Tokyo, 1971, especially D. Pacheco SJ. The Europeans in Japan, 1543-1640, Knauth, Confrontación Transpacifica, el Japon y el Nuevo Mundo Hispánico. Mexico, 1972, and Kuichi Matsuda, The relations between Portugal and Japan. Lisbon, 1965.\n\n73", "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": 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": 209149, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "38\n\nEDGAR WICKBERG\n\nhalls to see what I could learn about Tang influence on the one hand and local solidarities and influence on the other.\n\nI expected to find a pattern of declining Tang landholdings as one moved away from Kam Tin towards the east end of the Basin. In fact, what I found was solid owned-holdings and mortgage holdings by the Kam Tin Tangs in the area immediately to the east of the lineage stronghold itself, but a complete drop-off thereafter: no Kam Tin Tang holdings beyond a mile or two east of Kam Tin. Instead, what is most noticeable is the widespread land ownership influence of a different set of Tangs - the Hakka Tangs of Wang Toi Shan, a large village of several hamlets in the Northeastern portion of the Pat Heung area. Indeed, it is Wang Toi Shan ownership that follows my presumed pattern of solidity nearby trailing off to smaller amounts over distance. Wang Toi Shan people owned lands at considerable distances from their village well beyond their ability to walk to them and cultivate them themselves and right up to the area where Kam Tin Tang ownership began. Interestingly enough, Wang Toi Shan Tang holdings were mostly those of clan trusts. Where the lands were near to Wang Toi Shan itself, they were both individually-owned and clan-owned; more distant lands were almost all clan-owned. Parenthetically, this seems to resemble an observation made by J. T. Kamm about the holdings of the Kam Tin Tangs: that their individual holdings were close by and their clan holdings were often distant.\n\nThe Tangs of Wang Toi Shan may or may not be related in some way to the Tangs of Kam Tin. The Wang Toi Shan Tangs were Hakkas, of course, and the Kam Tin Tangs are usually thought of as Punti. But there is a Kam Tin tradition that someone of the Punti Tang branches of Ping Shan or Ha Tsuen married a Hakka woman of Waichow and that her male offspring settled in Wang Toi Shan, thereby founding the Tang name and fortune there. And the genealogy of the Hakka Tangs of Shui Lau Tin, who claim affiliation with the Wong Toi Shan Tangs, shows some possible links between themselves and the Kam Tin Tangs. The Wang Toi Shan Tangs with whom I have spoken deny kinship, but their genealogy appears to show a common place of origin in North China with the Kam Tin Tangs. Lo Hsiang-lin, however, finds no modern connection.\n\nV. Localities\n\nLet us look individually at the villages in the area east of Kam Tin, starting with Sheung Tsuen village, the farthest away at the east end", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209486, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "121\n\nemotional man, he was the darling of the public but less popular with Judges and members of the English Bar.\n\nIt was not easy, given the facts outlined above, for Marshall Hall to establish a sound defence, one that would save the unfortunate man from the gallows. The three murders — that of his Welsh wife (born Catherine Morgan) and of his two daughters, Doris (20) and Cecilia (18) — appeared to be unmotivated. Since Marshall Hall could not understand why Lock went berserk, he concluded he must have been insane when he committed the crimes. In 1925 a plea of insanity had to satisfy the M'Naghten Rules. These rules declared:\n\n'to establish a defence on the ground of insanity it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong'.8\n\nBut when Lock phoned the Liverpool police and reported the murders, it was clear he knew what he had done and that it was wrong, and that he expected to be punished.\n\nIf the case were tried today, it seems likely his counsel would plead 'diminished responsibility'.10 In 1925, needless to say, such a plea was not available to the defence, so Marshall Hall fell back on a rather dubious argument, supported by questionable medical and psychiatric evidence, that Lock acted as he did in a state of 'unconscious automatism', brought on by an epileptic fit.11\n\nIn 1918 some drunken Russian sailors had attempted to enter the Chinese Republic Progress Club, run by Lock; a fight had broken out when he attempted to eject them and he had been stunned by a billiard cue. Witnesses for the defence averred that his behaviour started to change afterwards, that he began to drink heavily at times, but more so when, in 1923, he lost much of his fortune — £10,000 — in an unsuccessful shipping venture. As Marshall Hall argued: \"Some minute happening in the brain caused a change for which none of us can account, turned a man — a mild, lovable, peaceable man — into a raving madman. Absolutely and entirely motiveless, he killed those", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209488, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 145, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "123 is unnecessary, though, of course, always useful. What has to be proved by the prosecution, before there is a verdict of guilty, is that the accused committed the act in circumstances amounting to murder, not why he did so',16\n\nAs there was no reason to doubt that Lock committed the three murders he never denied that and it was certain he was not legally insane under the M'Naghten Rules, the verdict was a proper one. So Lock was executed on March 23, 1926, at Walton Gaol, Liverpool. A French court would have spent much time exploring the problem of motivation; and in the pre-trial period, a French examining magistrate would have rigorously questioned Lock, and other witnesses and parties, and prepared a dossier on the history of the crime. But this is not English legal practice: an English court is concerned primarily with evidence, less so with obscure problems of why men act as they do.\n\nTennyson Jesse maintains that all murders may be reduced to one of six types: murder for gain, for revenge, for elimination, for jealousy, or as a result of lust of killing, or from conviction (such as Orsini's attempt to assassinate Napoleon III, which failed, but led to the death of a number of bystanders).17 She does not include insanity in her typology because a madman is presumed to act irrationally, and it is not easy to unscramble a deranged mind. But if we accept her classification, then we must exclude Lock: he does not fit apparently into any of her divisions.\n\nIf we return to Lock's biography, we may discover clues that could account for his behaviour. As outlined above, Lock settled in England when he was twenty-three; worked for a time as clerk or assistant for a shipping agency until he became an independent businessman and an agent for three British shipping lines employing Chinese seamen. By hard work and frugal living, he amassed a small fortune, and became a spokesman community leader for the Liverpool Chinese community and, later, a spokesman for all Chinese in England. By 1924, when he was to lose most of his fortune, he was the most respected Chinese in England, certainly on Merseyside where he saw to it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209489, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 146, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "124\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nthat destitute or disreputable Chinese were shipped back to their homeland without expense to the British taxpayer. All in all, a model citizen of his adopted country.\n\nOne surmises that Lock settled down in England in 1895 without experiencing an acute degree of cultural ‘dislocation'; it was after all his elected country and must have appeared a land of opportunity to the young Cantonese. But he remained Chinese, enmeshed in the themes of Chinese society and culture — a migrant, a marginal man. Since wealth and status are closely linked in Chinese society, particularly so in overseas Chinese communities which then lacked a Chinese scholar class, once his fortune disappeared as a result of injudicious speculation, he must have experienced a shameful loss of 'face', a loss of standing within the Chinese Liverpool community. His bankruptcy was temporarily masked by maintaining a high degree of conspicuous consumption (how did he do it?). Lock was 52 in 1925, and to recoup his finances would have been difficult at that time, when the British economy was listing and shipping trade with China interrupted by the great strike and boycott of Hong Kong and the Treaty Ports. It is plausible to suggest, then, that Lock felt disgraced, ashamed of what the future might bring his wife and three grown-up children, victims of his middle-aged ineptitude, or bad luck. It is possible to point to a number of English, let alone Chinese murders, motivated by the same impulse: fear of the future.19\n\nAll this is speculation, need it be said. The writer has not seen the transcript of the trial — has it survived? — and Lock's case is not included in the eighty-three volumes of the Notable British Trials Series.20 It seems sensible, though, to argue that Lock's friends, all those giving evidence for the defence, would tend to over-emphasise his bouts of ill-temper and any episodes which might suggest he was mentally sick. This type of retrospective interpretation or evaluation is common in many murder trials. We do not know what precisely triggered off Lock's murderous assault in the early hours of December 2, 1925. Did some chance remark made by his wife drive him into a frenzy? Did she, perhaps unwittingly, make him aware of the shame he had brought upon his family — did she awaken the tiger? That,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209498, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "133\n\nstrangled by three pieces of string or cord. Travers Humphreys asserts: 'The method is peculiarly Oriental, and indicated that she had been sitting on the ground when someone, with the string held in both hands, had suddenly drawn it tightly round her throat and knotted it behind'.42 Strangulation by this method — a ligature — is not, surely, 'peculiarly Oriental'? It was adopted, for example, by the murderer in the celebrated Yarmouth case of 1900, where the victim was strangled by a mohair bootlace.4 Another source of perplexity, to repeat, was language: people who do not speak your language are apt to be regarded as dense or odd. Miao often declared he had been misunderstood. Thus at first he believed his wife's body had been found by Miss Crossley, and he is alleged to have asked 'Did she go to the place where they bathe?' (indicating that he knew where she had been murdered). Later, Miao's counsel urged that what he really said was, 'Had she gone to look for his wife at the place where people take the bus'.\n\nThe three pieces of paper, with the cabbalistic or arcane questions on them, also worried Travers Humphreys. One of the statements made by Miao, he relates, 'to the Appeal Court was that he was in the habit of asking God which of two or more courses he should take, when he would put the alternatives on separate pieces of paper, would then pray for guidance and decide by drawing a lot. Does not that statement indicate a confusion of mind sufficient to account for almost any action?'44 But the art of divination — the drawing of lots — has a long history in China; so, too, has fortune-telling, once a normal custom when a marriage was projected between families. The mysterious I Ching has also been widely used by Chinese for centuries as a means of grasping the future. One should also refer to a widely-held belief in the efficacy of feng-shui, certainly in the 1920s. The rational Travers Humphreys, in the quotation given above, was suggesting, of course, that Miao was suffering from religious mania or acute superstition; but, if so, why should this provide a motive for the crime unless he believed his wife was the Antichrist?\n\nOn balance, it seems obvious that Miao's crime was a murder for profit. He had little money in his possession when he married; the planned two-months vacation appears to have been financed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209606, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 263, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "241\n\n# APPENDIX\n\n## THE HONG KONG AMATEUR DRAMATIC CLUB AND ITS PREDECESSORS Significant Dates and Performances.\n\n(Authors and dates of first publication or production from A. Nicoll, A History of English Drama, \"Handlist of Plays\".)\n\n(Note: only ADC productions are noted here: professional performances, and performances by Garrison groups or other amateur groups not detailed here).\n\n### 1844/45\n\n18 Dec. 1844 proposed to form a dramatic company of amateurs under patronage of H. E. Governor Davis.\n\n### 1845/46\n\n3 Jan. 1846 Tues. last performance given by \"Corps Dramatique\" at Aqui's Theatre in the Lower Bazaar.\n\n27 Jan. 1846 party of Amateur Performers presented \"The Lady and the Devil\" followed by \"Fortune's Frolic\" Aqui's Theatre.\n\n24 Mar. 1846 Amateur Performers Wed. last, \"The Midnight Hour\" and \"The Sleep Walkers\" Theatre.\n\n28 Apr. 1846 Amateur performance Mon. evening at Aqui's.\n\n27 June 1846 - Amateur Performers fifth and last performance at Aqui's Theatre.\n\n8 Jan. 1846 at length a fair prospect of a Theatre being erected in Hong Kong. Idea suggested last year. Half of funds needed already subscribed.\n\n9 Feb. 1846 Meeting of shareholders of proposed Theatre at house of Mr. Just, corner Queen's Road and Pottinger Street.\n\n### 1848/49\n\n1 Nov. 1848 first public performance by amateurs in new theatre (the Victoria) erected by Mr. Duddell. \"The Weathercock” (J. T. Allingham, 1805) followed by a comic song, concluded with farce \"Rival Valets\" (J. Ebsworth, 1805).\n\n1 Dec. 1848 - Amateurs second performance. \"Fortune's Frolic\" farce (J. T. Allingham, 1799) \"Bambastes Furioso\" burlesque tragic operetta (W. B. Rhodes, 1810) \"The Weathered\" farce\n\n### 1852/53\n\n8 Nov. 1852 meeting at City Hall of persons interested in the revival of drama in Hong Kong. To take measures for preserving the Victoria Theatre to the community for purpose it was originally erected. Committee of four to organize Theatrical Company.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209828, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "65\n\nII. A detailed account of the language contact situation in Hong Kong. With the question of 1997 looming very large, changes in the language situation and in attitudes to both English and Chinese are taking place, and this is a rich area for further sociolinguistic research.7\n\nIII. An analysis, with illustrations of the methods of naming new 'things'. The exposure to things Chinese inevitably leads to the need to 'name' things which are Chinese and new and alien to the English-speaking expatriate. Hockett writes of 'need-filling' as one motive for borrowing. The methods are:\n\n(i) The adaptation of an existing English term.\n\nThis appears to be a favoured method when the referent is an object with a discernible physical appearance or a distinctly describable function. English speakers have tended in some instances to extend the semantic range of existing terms in their own language in order to give a name to the newly-introduced object. For example, traditional Chinese in Hong Kong are firm believers in the principles of fung shui, literally 'wind and water', or the proper and propitious placing of objects so as to ensure good fortune. While the term has been borrowed locally as a phonetic loan and fung shui appears in local publications and novels with a Chinese setting, an English term geomancy, borrowed, but not from Chinese, has been modified to refer to this Chinese belief and art. The loose unisex garment worn by the working class, the sam fu has been dubbed pyjamas. The individual pieces which make up a mahjong set being referred to as tiles is another example of adaptation.\n\n(ii) A second method of coping with the need for new 'names' based on the use of native resources is operative among the English-speaking expatriates in Hong Kong. They take the English 'name'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209877, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "114\n\n$\n\ntemple's immediate vicinity take their place? Practically from the start, for example, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, Tai Ping Shan, became identified with a city-wide group of merchant and trade guild elite figures that, by 1870, had been further elevated by its incorporation into the management of the newly established Tung Wah Hospital, an institution that could speak for all Chinese in Hong Kong. But was this to imply that all new urban and suburban temples and shrines were subject to merchant and trade guild elite control? Was a new, elite-leadership pattern imposed from the outset in all localities by the leaders of the merchant community in what, after all, was not a very large or widely dispersed population, given the tendency to congregate near the workplace in the central districts of Victoria? Or did any new urban and suburban village-type shrines and temples emerge according to the well-established self-managing patterns of the countryside from which most of the new population had come? And did the older, pre-British temples also fall under the sway of this merchant elite, or did they continue under their own local management?\n\nThis article endeavours to answer these questions, being mostly concerned with the new communities of British Hong Kong, established after the island passed under British rule in 1842. The first of the communities studied was located on the small island of Ap Lei Chau, a coastal market centre and boat people's anchorage on the south side of Hong Kong Island and was centred on a long-established temple. Five others were geographically organized inter-dialect communities organized to arrange the worship of street shrines serving their localities. Three of these shrines were located in the older and well-populated western part of early urban Hong Kong; the others were in the Shau Kei Wan area on the eastern part of the island, in what were originally scattered small communities of vegetable farmers, stone cutters, boat builders and shopkeepers settled along the shore and on the hillsides, just outside the long-established fishing port.\n\nIn every one of these cases the inspiration and continuance of these shrines was due to local initiatives and local management, perhaps because their universally desired end — namely, communal good fortune and prosperity under the protection of the gods was the concern of residents in each place.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209886, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 145, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "123\n\nwhenever there is an outbreak of plague or other serious epidemic; but within the fifty years' collective memory of the mid 1960s managers this had only happened once, about 1915. The committee of managers does not run money loan or funeral benefit schemes, nor does it undertake general welfare or community work. It is, and was, it seems, concerned only with ensuring the continued protection of the area through the faithful and regular performance of religious rites and their accompanying entertainment. The god's image was always brought to the place where the puppets were being shown, and to the restaurant where the annual dinner was held at which the leaders were selected.\n\nIt will be seen from this account of their duties that these managers did not have the wider general functions performed by the leaders of the three Fong on Ap Lei Chau. They were kaifongs, but they were not the Kaifong, a role played by the predecessors of the postwar Western Kaifong Association, Ltd., whose premises are located at Possession Point.\n\nThe method of selecting the managers has differed little over the period 1910-1965, although it was apparently more protracted and complicated in pre-war years. This was because there were more interested parties than there have been since the war, when redevelopment of old properties has gradually taken large numbers of former residents away from the area, and so beyond the immediate area of the god's protection.\n\nIn pre-war times there might be up to 100 interested parties who wished to become chik lei, but as stated, only 40-50 were required. The selection was left to the god. It was the practice for all persons wishing to serve on the committee to go to the shrine at an appointed time on the god's birthday. Lots were drawn in front of the altar. The number of tickets matched the number of aspirants. Only, say, 40 of the papers were marked chik lei, the rest being marked with the characters tai kat (1/2) or 'great fortune'. Only those securing the first went forward to the second stage in the selection of managers. This was the filling of the three senior posts of chung (#4), fu (§]) and hip chik lei (£), or principal, deputy and assistant (senior) manager, This event was conducted in a restaurant at the annual dinner held in the first moon. Again, the selection was made in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209887, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 146, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "124\n\ntheory by the god, whose image was brought to the dinner. Forty tickets were prepared for those persons who had secured chik lei papers at the ceremony in front of the altar. Three of the tickets were marked for the senior positions: the rest, as before, were marked tai kat. In this way, the selection of officers was, at least in theory, removed from human control. If there was discontent with the results, the god was responsible and not the persons from the previous year's committee who had made the arrangements. Unsuccessful candidates secured 'great fortune' papers: what more could be done?\n\nIt remains to be emphasized that the shrine was considered to be of great importance to the well-being of the district by the local residents. I was told that 90% of the pre-war population of the district attended at the shrine, at the first lunar month, including whole families. Whilst this is probably an exaggeration, the importance of the shrine is beyond doubt. After thinking for a time, a manager told me in the presence of others that it was 'more important than the ancestors in the daily life of the people'.\n\nThere was no restriction by age, sex or origin on eligibility for management, pre or post war. The grandmother of one of my informants had served as one of the senior managers when he was a small boy, and she had long been associated with the group. Again, as mentioned above, one of the Keepers was the elderly lady whose photograph is retained at the shrine.\n\n(2) Tai Ping Shan (K†14)\n\nThe second urban Fuk Tak Kung shrine and its management committee chosen for study, comes from an equally old section of 19th century urban Hong Kong, the Tai Ping Shan district. This district had boundaries fixed by the British administration: 'No. 3 or Tai Ping Shan', as it is described in the Hongkong Government Gazette for 9th May 1857, which proceeds to name the streets within which the name applied.27 They seem to agree generally with the area described by the committee members I interviewed in the mid 1960s, and other old residents, as being associated with the shrine. However, as in the case of the Sheung Fung Lane Fuk Tak Kung, persons from outside the immediate area of influence and protection also came there to worship.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209952, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "189\n\nN° of Column\n\n5.\n\n+\n\n4\n\nOmens cause problems. If a dog eats its own pups it bodes ill.15 Those who hear a dog howl should not go out for three years10 (or) family ruin and deaths will inevitably follow.\n\n6. Chapter 26: Omens to be drawn from dogs which bare their teeth.\n\nIf a dog bares its teeth on a zi day great good fortune will follow. [Some claim it bodes ill for the eldest son.17]\n\nIf a dog bares its teeth on a zhou day, it bodes ill; women will die.\n\n7.\n\nA\n\n8.\n\nJ\n\n**\n\n++\n\n+\n\nyin, good fortune.\n\n+\n\n+\n\nor the misfortune of parting.\n\nIf a dog (bares its teeth on a) mao day, there will be grief. It bodes ill for the eldest son.\n\nsi, it is also unfavourable for convening guests.\n\nwu... (there will be) litigation over property.\n\nwei.. great good fortune and benefits will follow. [Some claim there will be mutual injury.]\n\nshen ... misfortune and deaths will follow.\n\nyou ... great good fortune will follow. [Some claim evil spirits will arrive.]\n\nxu ...\n\n+\n\n+\n\n9. If a dog urinates against someone's door,18 within three days there will be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209954, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 213, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "191\n\nN° of\n\nColumn\n\nOmens\n\n19. Offering made to each of the four quarters will be auspicious.\n\n20,\n\n21.\n\nThe Shuozhou says:\n\n\"Dogs die and are repeatedly reborn; to eat dogs is unlucky.\n\n+\n\n+\n\ninauspicious. Once (it) possesses supernatural powers (it) can cause misfortune.\n\ndeath and destroy one's links (with the living???).\n\ndifficult to catch in order to kill it; if wounded it becomes even fiercer(?).\n\nIf you reflect on how best to worship (it) again in order to grow rich (then) release something living(?), it will bring great good fortune to all of us. Afterward, all things will rapidly be successful as promised in the rules. (?) Make an amulet and put a dog at the top.\n\n22.\n\n23. Chapter 27: Omens from sounds.\n\nAll these sounds are (produced) by the ghosts of dead soldiers.\n\nIf a sound is heard on a zi day, it bodes ill; there will be illness\n\n24. (and misfortune?). Write an astronomical charm and hang it over the door and all will be well.\n\nIf a sound is heard on a zhou day, there will be damage to wealth and property and misfortune for small children. Offer a peach tree branch, 6 inches seven cun long.\n\n25. Write an astronomical charm and place it in the branch and it will bring good fortune.\n\nIf sounds are heard on a yin day, it bodes ill. There will be illness, calamities and loss of wealth. Offer a peach tree branch 6 inches 7 cun long.\n\n26. Write an astronomical charm in order to produce good fortune. If a sound is heard on a mao day, disasters will affect young children. Offer a branch of the tong tree three inches nine cun long.\n\nI made the following corrections:\n- \"muži\" to \"cun\" (assuming it's a unit of measurement, and \"cun\" is a common Chinese unit)\n- \"US\" to \"us\"\n- \"zi F day\" to \"zi day\" (removed the extra character)\n- \"zhou # day\" to \"zhou day\" (removed the extra character)\n- \"mao p day\" to \"mao day\" (removed the extra character)\n- Added or corrected punctuation for better readability\n- Corrected some spacing issues\n- \"seven muži\" and \"7 mu\" to \"seven cun\" (consistency in unit of measurement)\n\nNote that some parts of the text still appear to be unclear or contain uncertain characters (e.g., \"(with the living???)\" and \"(?)\"). These were left as is, as per the instruction to not rephrase or rewrite the text.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210039, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 10, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "done across the territory. Inscribed tablets have been copied from old temples and other public buildings, together with documents and family papers, and interesting old persons have been interviewed. The nature of this work, and its results so far, were reviewed.\n\nOn 30 May, the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong invited members of our Society to attend a lecture meeting at which Professor Michael Sullivan, Christensen Professor of Oriental Art at Stanford University spoke on \"The Present State of Chinese Painting”. On 19 June, Dr. Rosemary Quested, Reader in History at the University of Hong Kong and an authority on Sino-Russian relations, spoke on the subject \"Whither Sino-Soviet Relations: some reflections in the light of history and current events.” On 28th June, Ms. Patricia Cuenot gave a slide presentation entitled \"The Magic of Pushkar\", which dealt with the Camel Fair held during October and November each year in Pushkar, Rajasthan.\n\nOn 24 October, one of our members, Mr. Phillip Bruce, a Principal Information Officer of Government Information Services, gave a fascinating illustrated talk, entitled \"The Forgotten Fortress\". Based on his own research, it dealt with the coastal defences of Hong Kong from the 1840s up to the 1939-45 war. Following this, on 13 November, Professor Grant K. Goodman of the University of Kansas, who is Japan Foundation Visiting Professor of History at the University of Hong Kong and a specialist on the history and politics of Japan, gave an interesting lecture entitled \"Vanguard of Empire? — Japanese prostitutes in South East Asia\".\n\nOn Friday, 7 December, Mr. Francis S.Y. Sham, a veteran translator and language teacher and a member of our Society, gave an interesting talk on \"Fortune Sticks from Hong Kong's Temples\". Mr. Sham has published two volumes on fortune sticks from Kwun Yum and Wong Tai Sin Temples and is currently working on Lui Tso oracles from the Ching Chung Kwan monastery in Castle Peak.\n\nOn 29 January, 1985, I spoke on the subject \"Hong Kong before Lord Palmerston: a “Go” at the Barren Rock Myth”. The talk\n\nix", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210062, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "12\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\n(Yin) oracle practice is well documented, there is up to now almost no evidence about the assumed transition from osteomancy to the use of I ching related divination. And yet many authors believe that there was a transition or change from the use of oracle bones to a different, yarrow stalk related type of divination, which ultimately crystallized into the Book of Changes.3 One can, however, with equal or even more probability assume that consultation by means of the dried stalks of yarrow or milfoil had an independent origin and that the I ching type of divination somehow resulted from a combination of scapulomancy and achilleomancy.\n\nThat the ancient form of divining from oracle bones was not completely or immediately abolished by the use of milfoil stalks, is evident from texts such as the Shu ching: it is stated there several times that rulers resorted to the double consultation of the tortoise and the milfoil stalks.4 During the Chou, however, the diagrams of the I-ching started to prevail. It is believed that King Wen and the Duke of Chou had a role in the creation of the diagrams, although legend holds that they go back to the mythical ruler Fu-hsi. The origin of the linear patterns is not known. Few researchers have come up with a probable hypothesis concerning the original meaning of the basic diagrams -- and --. Their identification with yin and yang is almost certainly secondary; even their description as \"whole\", and \"broken\" or \"divided\" does not seem to correspond with their origin. In my view, the most plausible theory is to see them as an early expression of number symbolism related to the use of sticks or stalks as counting tools. This is the assumption made by Miyazaki Ichisada, who admits that he does not understand much of the I ching, \"the most difficult and the most unintelligible” book among the Confucian classics.5 I agree with him that the figures called kua are the basis of the whole text, and that the later commentaries are philosophical rationalizations of an ancient simple divination technique.\n\nHis main argument consists in the etymological analysis of several Chinese characters related to divination: for example the characters chi “good luck, good fortune\" and hsiung, “bad luck” actually express an odd and an even number respectively. This indicates that originally the yarrow stick divination proceeded as follows: \"a certain number of sticks were placed in a box; one took", "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": 210164, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "114 \n\nJAMES HAYES \n\nlation hard at work getting in the second crop of paddy. The principal part of the labourers was the women, owing probably to the fact of the men being generally engaged in fishing. The paddy rice grows to a height of about two feet six inches. The fields are little patches of about fifty paces, on account of the unevenness of the ground. The rice is thrashed out of doors: first, in a tub with a screen, by a man, who takes a bunch in his two hands to strike the ears against the edge of the tub and then gives the rice again to be thrashed on a floor made hard with chunam, the Chinese asphalt. Ploughing is here done with a very primitive plough and a wonderfully small bullock, as the ground is soft and does not contain a single pebble, ... After being harrowed, it may receive a crop of sweet potatoes, or ground nuts. The women work with children on their backs. No one appears too young to take a part in the work. In the next fields are sugar-canes. \n\n9.29 \n\nThus long before 1841, the villagers of Hong Kong, and the shopkeepers and local boat people too, had settled into the routine of a settled life. Tied to their fields and houses, and to their businesses and daily occupations, they had established institutions of the kind that is usual in Chinese communities, including the shrines and temples that were the object of periodic and special rites through the calendar year. They were therefore to be numbered among those who, in another place and time, twenty years on at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, were described as \"the old inhabitants of this site, who are indeed orderly people” in contrast to newcomers who were suspected of being \"thieves and outlaws”.3 \n\n30 \n\nTheir good behaviour struck a series of visitors from outside. The famous botanist Robert Fortune, writing of his experiences on the Hong Kong area in the 1840s commented: \n\n\"In all my wanderings on the island, and also on the mainland hereabouts, I found the inhabitants harmless and civil. I have visited their glens and their mountains, their villages and small towns, and from all the intercourse I have had with them I am bound to give them this character. \n\nAnother observer, the military surgeon Keith Stewart McKenzie, \n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210187, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "137\n\nRevd Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1865), Vol. II, p. 55; Robert K. Douglas, China (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2nd Edition, 1887) pp. 280-1; Juliet Bredon and Igor Metrophanow, The Moon Year, A Record of Chinese Customs and Festivals (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh Ltd, 1927) pp. 314-5.\n\n26\n\nJ. W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region op. cit., p. 210 note 87. A full account of the stakenet fishing is given in my forthcoming article on the coastal and inshore fisheries of Hong Kong Island and adjacent places in the 19th century and earlier, to appear in Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Asian Studies, 1986, Vol. I, China, Asian Research Service, GPO Box 2232 Hong Kong.\n\n27\n\nChina Mail No. 212, 8 March 1849, Witness No. 23 at the recorded Coroner's Inquest. Possibly also nos. 19 and 22.\n\n20\n\nA large scale map of Little Hong Kong at 80' to 1, in five sheets, showing the Old and New Villages and their fields (1892) is in the PRO of Hong Kong. In 1844 it was stated that the Wong Nai Chung fields measured 75.1 acres (CSO129/9807, p. 277).\n\n1\n\nIllustrated London News, 16 January 1858.\n\n10\n\nHong Kong Government Gazette, Government Notification 41 of 1860, dated 24 March 1860.\n\nRobert Fortune, Three Years Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China (London, John Murray, 2nd edition 1847) p.17. He qualifies his remarks slightly, but the substance is as stated. See also his general very favourable verdict on the Chinese people at p. xv.\n\n32\n\nK.S. McKenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China (London, R. Bentley, 1842) p. 160.\n\n33\n\nCaptain G.G. Loch, Closing Events of the Campaign in China (London, John Murray, 1843) p. 21.\n\n14\n\n35\n\nMcKenzie, op. cit., p. 163.\n\nDalrymple's Observations on the Southern Coasts of China and the Island of Hainan (London, 1806). After p. 20 in the text. This willingness to trade with strangers continued into the period of hostilities between Britain and China when the local people appear to have been very ready to supply the British forces and the civilian population with food and other necessities. Indeed this extended to such a degree that led Captain Elliott to state in one of his despatches to Lord Ellenborough, Governor-General of India, that the retention of Hong Kong would be \"an act of justice and protection to the Native population upon which we have been so long dependent for assistance and supply. Indescribably dreadful instances of the hostility between these people and the Government are within our certain knowledge; and they cannot be abandoned without the most fatal consequences.” Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, 3 vols, reprinted by Book World Company, Taipei, Appendix I to Vol. 1, pp. 650-1. See also pp. 241-2 for local provisioning.\n\n34\n\nJohn Francis Davis. Sketches of China, Partly during an Inland Journey of Four Months between Peking, Nanking and Canton, bound in with Volume III of his A General Description of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, New Edition, 1845), p. 12. See also Wright and Allom, op. cit., \"The Harbour of Hong Kong\" which speaks of the \"innate gentleness, and disinterested hospitality, of the farmers and the fishermen of Hong Kong\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210264, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 235, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "214\n\nJ.H. HAAN\n\nGRAY, Hubert Marshall Murray 1869-1860\n\n69\n\n.68\n\nAs early as 1846 he resided in Shanghai, worked for Dirom, Gray & Co. Authorized to sign for Smith, Kennedy & Co. March 30, 1858,7 partner November 18, 1858;this interest ceased December 31, 1860.72\n\nGREW, Henry Sturgis 1862-1863\n\nPartner in Russell & Co. from January 1, 1860.7\n\nDuring the absence of F.B. Forbes he acted as vice-consul for Sweden and Norway 1865.8\n\nGRISWOLD, John N. Alsop 1849-1850\n\nCame to China in 1843,9 first in Canton,10 from 1848 in Shanghai11\n\nPartner in Russell & Co. from 1848 till December 31, 1854.7 United States Consul 1848-1851.\n\nHAMILTON, Rowland 1860-1861\n\nPartner in Smith, Kennedy & Co. from November 18, 18587 till December 31, 1860.00\n\nMember of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps.31\n\nHANBURY, Sir Thomas 1865-1866\n\nBorn 1832, died 1907.82\n\nIn 1853 he founded the firm Hanbury & Co., as from 1856 Crampton, Hanbury & Co.; this partnership was dissolved in September 1857,83 after which he established a new one, Bower, Hanbury & Co.\n\nMade a considerable fortune through the sale of land in Hongkew. He was also a landowner in the French Concession where he tried to initiate the local \"Halles\", but in this he was unsuccessful (1864-1865).\n\n85\n\nMember of the Commission Provisoire of the French Concession 1865-1866.86\n\nMember of Committees II, III, IV, V, VII and IX. Corresponding secretary of the NCBRAS 1864.87", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "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": 210466, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "54\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nwould engage a Taoist priest to come down to his junk and perform a ceremony known as Changing the Gods (woon shan). This, which involved spilling the blood of a domestic fowl, was believed to provide cleansing from pollution and open the way for good fortune.\n\nThe annual ritual cycle began with the New Year and proceeded almost immediately to the public festival for the 'birthday' of the local tutelary deity, Hung Shing Kung, on the 13th day of the 2nd lunar month. These two occasions were the ritual highlights of the year. Quickly in their wake came Ch'ing Ming, fixed by the Chinese solar calendar at a date corresponding with April 6th and falling therefore usually in the third lunar month. This was one of the two special occasions for the commemoration of a family's departed members. The third month saw also the festival to T'in Hau, the so-called Queen of Heaven, protectress of all seamen, celebrated biennially with Chinese opera at the neighbouring village of Lung Shuen Wan and annually in a large number of other places in the Colony.\n\nIn the fourth month there was a festival at the temple of T'am Kung in Shaukiwan to which a few Kau Sai people sometimes went to watch the plays, and on the fifth day of the fifth month the Dragon Boat festival. Kau Sai had once had a Dragon Boat of its own which, I was told, on one memorable occasion even came in first in the 'regatta' held in those days at Aberdeen and attended by H.E. the Governor. But that was back in the 'twenties. Later, Kau Sai people merely looked on at the Dragon Boat races held elsewhere, or sometimes 'fielded' a scratch 'team' for the fun of the thing at Sai Kung. All boat families also made offerings at the temple on the Double Fifth which was also widely used as a kind of dividing mark in the calendar: hired crew, for example, were usually engaged or laid off at New Year and the Dragon Boat festival.\n\nIn the sixth lunar month was held the festival for Koon Yam, 'Goddess of Mercy', observed in all her many temples but attended particularly by Kau Sai residents at the village of Pak Sha Wan, near Sai Kung. (The fact that this village was also the site of that Kau Sai New Village to which the landsmen were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210521, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "109\n\nOne of these couples had their baby daughter aged 2 and the man's widowed mother with them as well. They and one other of the 3 married couples employed in this way (also on the same boat) were affinally related to the boat's master. The third pair of married employees, on another boat, was not so related.\n\nAlthough it was unusual to find boat dwellers, even fokis, who had originated on the land like Leung Shui Hei, his history was by no means unique. My notes contain a number of other similar cases from other centres of the Boat People, and a large number of cases also of adoption from land with water families. This whole topic, crucial, obviously, to an understanding of the actual relationship between the Boat People and the Chinese population on land, is discussed at greater length below, and elsewhere (Ward 1965, and forthcoming). The more usual backgrounds from which the Kau Sai fokis came were two. First, there were the younger sons of fishermen whose business was not of a kind or scale to require the employment of a complete extended family crew. All the Kau Sai small long-liners were cases in point, as were most of the other small liners, hand-liners, trappers, gill-netters and so on of the inshore waters all around Hong Kong. Such families were not necessarily impoverished, though many were not far from the subsistence level and some were very poor indeed. A small long-liner could, however, run a prosperous business without needing to expand his crew. In such cases, the fact that a younger son or brother was doing a spell of work as a foki did not necessarily imply that he or his family were poverty stricken: he could be simply an absentee member of a successful working unit whose organisers found it more profitable to have him earning a wage outside than being underemployed at home. Secondly, of course, fokis did also come from the ranks of the unsuccessful of all kinds, and not only from boats with small crews, but also from purse-seiners and sometimes trawlers and others whose business in prosperity not only required more workers than even the largest extended families could provide but could also support them all. Fishing being a chancy business and the South China Sea treacherous, sudden reverses of fortune were always possible, and there were not a few stories of the one time junks' masters who had had to pay off their fokis, sell their junks, dismiss their sons with their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210725, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "59\n\nStreet on the Natural History of Hongkong contained numerous references to the flora of the region and these notices would undoubtedly have had the effect of keeping the idea of a Botanical Garden in the minds of the relevant authorities, both in Hongkong and in London. For example, in Despatch no. 130 of 1860 it is stated that:\n\n\"Botanical notices have appeared in Hooker's Journal of Botany 1842. Collections made by Mr. R.B. Hinds, Surgeon, H.M. Ship “Sulphur”. Also in Journal of Horticultural Society 1844 and subsequent numbers by Lindley, of plants collected by Mr. Fortune on his first visit to China.\n\nIn Walpers Annales, descriptions by Dr. Hance of Hong Kong Plants. Some plants were described by the Botanist Mr. Wright attached to the American exploring expedition published by that government.\n\nA review of the Flora of the Colony, derived chiefly from the collections of the late Major Champion, 95th Regiment, was undertaken by Mr. Bentham, V.P.L.S. in Sir W. Hooker's \"Journal of Botany”, 1851 and succeeding years. This version was entitled 'Florula Hongkongensis'. The concluding section of the Botany of the voyage of H.M. Ship “Herald\" (London 1852-7, -4 to 100 plates) edited by Dr. Seemann, under the authority of the Lords Commissions of the Admiralty, is entirely devoted to Hong Kong, and includes, (in addition to the materials at the disposal of Mr. Bentham), the collections of Dr. Seemann himself, (not extensive, however). Since the date of these publications however, the knowledge of the vegetation of the island has been much extended and many novelties added by the constant explorations of the late Dr. Harland, Mr. Wilford (a collector sent out from Kew) and Dr. Hance now Vice Consul in Whampoa.\n\nA flora of Hong Kong to comprise all the plants hitherto discovered is now in preparation by Mr. Bentham", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210762, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "96\n\nCHAN WING HOI\n\nAlthough the number of persons who walked in the procession was impressive, for it was probably more than 300 at many points, many were in the main on-lookers. This was especially obvious in what I overheard when the procession reached Tai Long Wan. A middle-aged woman made the following comment to her companion: “Come along to the walk and have a good time together.” A young woman asked another, probably her newly married-in sister-in-law, if she had seen the piu-sik before. Someone else made the observation, \"There are so many things to see.”\n\nOnce back at the main ritual area, the Chiu Chau ceremonial music group started a more elaborate performance, with two girls in colourful costume walking their stylized steps carrying fancy baskets on poles. The performance, I learned later from a Chiu Chau friend, was called Chiu Chau fa-laam (flower baskets) and was typical of Chiu Chau celebrations.\n\nBecause of the heavy rain in the morning, the head priest proposed to change the time for posting the participants' names from the time chosen to some time in the afternoon, which, the priest stressed, was the time when the rite took place in the previous celebration. One of the local leaders suggested, without insisting, that maybe the gods wanted the rite to take place at the time chosen, but the priest's opinion prevailed. Two Shek O men whose achievements indicated their lives had been endowed with good fortune acted as laam-bong (recipients of the name list that was said to be granted by Heaven). The ritual for name posting took place between six and seven o'clock in the evening and was followed by two other rites Ying-shing (receiving the gods) and Siu-yau (small offering to the ghosts). I was absent during these rites but learned later from Mr. Leung, a photographer from the Hong Kong Museum of History, that the name posting took place in the rain and there were not many people watching. There were more people reading the document the next morning. Even then, Mr. Leung observed, there were not as many people reading as in the case of the jiu festival of Kam Tin which took place in the previous year in the New Territories.\n\nWhen I arrived at the ritual site on the last day of the festival at around 3:00 p.m., one of the main rites was already in progress. I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210817, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "151\n\nHe came of a humble family; his salary was not large and could have earned much more using his English language ability in a business firm or in Government service — but by exercising thrift, he was able soon after his arrival in Hongkong to buy property in the Lower Bazaar (Sheung Wan).\n\nAs the income from his property increased, he continued to invest in real estate. Linking his destiny with the advancing fortunes of Hongkong, he profited by its growth. By the time of his death in 1871, he had a large fortune.\n\nHis wealth enabled him to provide a good education for his sons. The most prominent of them was Sir Ho Kai. He received a university education in Britain, both in law and medicine, and was the benefactor of the Alice Memorial Hospital.\n\nWhen the Hongkong College of Medicine was established in 1887, Dr Ho Kai was one of the lecturers. His sister, Ho Miu-ling, wife of the Honourable Wu Ting-fang, twice Minister of the Chinese Government to the United States, also endowed a hospital. Both institutions are now a part of the Nethersole Hospital group.\n\nIt is fitting that the Ho Fuk Tong College at Tuen Mun, New Territories, perpetuates his name. Dr Ho Chung-chung, recently retired Headmistress of the Hongkong True Light Middle School, though not a direct descendant, was of the same Ho family.\n\nFrom 1843 to the present, members of the family of Ho Fuk-tong have contributed to education in Hongkong.\n\nTHE LIFE AND TIMES OF AN AMERICAN BITTEN BY THE “CHINA BUG”\n\nThe original plan for the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca was for a cosmopolitan student body. East and West would meet to study each other's language and culture.\n\nIn its first few years, there were some half-dozen foreign students. Most of them were adult missionaries learning the Chinese language. There were, however, three teenagers: James Bone, of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210842, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "176\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nDr. Legge never taken him away from the herd of buffaloes he was tending at Malacca.\n\nSTUDENTS CATCH GOLD FEVER\n\nGold fever hit the Canton delta in the 1850s. It had an unsettling effect on students. Books were much less attractive than nuggets of gold in California or Australia.\n\nThe reports of the schools reflect the pull of the gold-fields on the pupils.\n\nShortly before the first class of the Presbyterian Boarding School at Canton was to be graduated in 1852, the whole class was swept by the gold fever. Their principal, the Rev. Dr. Andrew Happer, explains the reasons. \"The villages from which the older pupils have come are those from which a great number had gone to California. Their brothers, uncles and cousins had gone, some had sent home some gold dust and statements about the ease with which gold could be obtained. This caused a feverish excitement among these boys.\"\n\nThe school had a hold on them from which it was not easy to get free. When they were enrolled their parents signed a bond that the boys would remain in the school for the full course, usually six to eight years. In return they received free board, clothing and education. If they left before this period, the cost of their board figured at $20 a month had to be refunded or the bond was forfeited.\n\nWhile others of their own age were off to adventure and fortune, they had to sit in the classroom deprived of their freedom. They became restless, unruly and hard to manage, not the docile, diligent, obedient students the missionary teachers had become used to.\n\nIt took a great amount of diplomatic skill and patience for Dr. Happer to prevent a full-scale walkout. He believed that most of the unrest was caused by one student, whom he had to dismiss. Afterwards Dr. Happer reflects: “I am now inclined to think that wanting employment he took the course he did with a wish to be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210874, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 225, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "208 \n\nCARL SMITH \n\nlency Chen Lan-pin, I had the honour through Dr. Eitel to receive your kind remembrance of me and my family. Your ever affectionate pupil and friend, Ho A-lloy.\" Time and fortune had not loosened the ties between pupil and master. \n\nWhen a new Chinese Ambassador was appointed to the United States, Ho Shun-chee returned to China. He served for a period as Secretary of the China Merchants Insurance Company at Shanghai. Tong King-sing, a former schoolmate, was the chairman of the company. \n\nIt was proposed that Ho Shun-chee be put in charge of a newly organised telegraph company, the Wa Hop, formed to build a line between Hongkong and Canton. The company was principally financed by Chinese capitalists in Hongkong. Later the company was taken over by the Chinese Government. \n\nThe careers of his brothers are not as well documented as that of Ho Shun-chee. The third brother, Chung Sang, was a worry to his elder brother. When A-lloy was teaching in the Government school he wrote to Dr. Legge about Chung Sang, who was then a student in the mission school. A-lloy thought it would be much better if his brother were more directly under his supervision. He requested Dr. Legge to release him that he might transfer to the school where A-lloy was teaching. He expressed a low estimate of his brother to Dr. Legge, describing him as \"by nature a very stupid, lazy and disobedient boy..., all play, flying his kite.” \n\nFurthermore he had been accused of stealing some money. The boy could not have been as stupid and lazy as his brother alleged for he was later manager of the Wah Tze Yat Po, a Chinese newspaper published in Hongkong. When his lease for the paper expired in 1889, it was taken over by Ho Wyson and Dr. Ho Kai, two of the sons of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong. \n\nA-lloy's second brother was A-fuk. Prospects for his career were bright. He too began by teaching English in a Chinese school supported by the Hongkong Government. From there he went into the Hongkong office of the North China Insurance Office as interpreter and Chinese manager. He died in 1873. \n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210920, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 271, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "254\n\nCARL SMITH\n\napplied to owners and frequenters of a \"house, room, boat, vessel or any place on land or water\" where gambling took place.\n\nIt left the open street in an indeterminate position. Tse-fa and pak-kop piu were easily carried on in the streets, particularly the former.\n\nDr. Ho Kai went into some detail describing the operations of the tse-fa scheme. The gambling societies employed a large number of agents, usually fortune tellers, pedlars and flower sellers, both men and women. Under cover of their trades they would call from house to house soliciting patronage.\n\nWith them they would have a card with the 36 characters of the lottery, one of which was to be chosen. They would also have copies of a doggerel poem in the form of a riddle.\n\nThe idea was that if the riddle was correctly interpreted it would indicate what the winning character would be. Actually it was of no assistance, but it served to arouse the interest of the better, particularly women who would get together to discuss for hours the meaning of the riddle.\n\nDr. Ho Kai remarked that \"the doggerel is obscurely put together, and is about as ambiguous as a Delphian Oracle, that it might point to any of the 36 characters, so that it oftener misleads than assists the better.\"\n\nAfter the agent had collected bets at the various places he stopped, he would make out a list of betters, characters chosen and amounts wagered. With this in hand he would go to some side street or lane where he would hand it to a collector, proceeding a little farther he would hand over the money he had received to another man.\n\nThe separation of the two actions was to protect the collectors from arrest. If the man with the money was apprehended there would be no document to associate the money he was carrying with gambling.\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210980, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "17\n\nOne must always take into account this French addiction to performing and making an impact on their public, whether dealing with the intellectual fireworks in honour of China in the eighteenth century, or on the occasion of more recent and far less pleasant pyrotechnics, somewhere in Polynesia.\n\nSo the Philosophes' encounter with China had, at its own level, contributed to the fall of the French monarchy. And for more than a century, French intellectuals were to be concerned with a completely different range of issues: political revolutions and counter-revolutions, France's position in Europe, industrial development and its social fall-out, freedom of speech and of thought, as well as colonial expansion. China had very little to do with these French-centred debates of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It had by then become a target for Western imperialism including France, and its cultural prestige was accordingly declining. China only mattered for a few isolated if not eccentric French intellectuals. China in this period was a very marginal feature in French intellectual life.\n\nSome of these marginal Sinophiles of the nineteenth century were belated admirers of an ideal and abstract China in the grand philosophical tradition. In a little-known novel by Balzac, L'Interdiction — a legal measure depriving a spendthrift of control over his estate — a Marquis d'Espard spends all his fortune on reprinting old Jesuit memoirs on China. He is a devoted right-wing monarchist; he admires the Chinese imperial monarchy for allegedly maintaining a social order the French kings had been unable to maintain. His wife, a typical Balzacian marquise, has a legal interdiction passed on him.\n\nThe Marquis d'Espard is a lonely figure in Balzac's little world — the Human Comedy — and equally solitary was the young Baudelaire, who was at college when Balzac was flourishing. In one of his strongest poems, Le Voyage (or 'the trip', also with the colloquial connotations of this word), his concern for China is expressed through brief but extremely challenging verses — a concern he must have developed in his college years:\n\nDe même qu'autrefois nous partions pour la Chine", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211040, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "76\n\nwith records of the \"autobiography” of the Taoist saint Huang Chuping, the figure worshipped by many thousands of devotees in Hong Kong as \"Wong Tai Sin.\" This autobiography has been reprinted in official publications of the Sese Yuan, and reads as follows (using the Sese Yuan's translation):\n\nAs a young shepherd boy, I spent my early childhood at Kim Hwa [Jinhua] Mountain located at the north of Kim Hwa City in Chekiang [Zhejiang] Province. The mountain was said to have derived its name from Venus and Mou Nui Constellation (Wunüxing) both of which were directly overhead. Orientated at the north of Kim Hwa Mountain was the Hill of Red Pines where I took abode. This hill, densely forested and often hidden in clouds and fog, was seldom frequented by outsiders. Among thick natural vegetations and interlocking peaks there was a deep ravine named Kim Hwa, one of the thirty-six caves of the similar geological structures in the neighbouring district.\n\nMy childhood was marred by poverty and hunger, compelling me to start earning my daily bread as a shepherd boy at the age of eight. At fifteen I was fortunate enough to have been blessed by a fairy who led me to a stone cave where I learned the art of refining cinnabar nine times into an immortal drug. For forty years in succession, I lived in this seclusion from the rest of the world until my brother broke this isolation. His early efforts were at first futile. However, through the guidance of a Taoist fortune-teller, he located me. My brother queried me of the whereabouts of the sheep under my custody. To this I replied that they could be traced in the east of the Kim Hwa Mountain. He was surprised, on arrival, to find nothing but heaps of white boulders which quickly transformed into sheep at my call. Fascinated by this impressive show of mine, my brother also took steps to learn to become an immortal.\n\nOriginally, I was named Wong Cho-ping (Huang Chuping), a subject of the Tsun [Jin] Dynasty and a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211060, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 121, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "96\n\nperformed by others into the legends of another Taoist, Chang San-feng (Wong, 1979:25). Religious lore is particularly susceptible to transfers of miracle-events from one legend to another during pre-literate periods, before chroniclers have had a chance to stabilize the legends by recording some versions for posterity. In describing the evolution of the images of the Olympian gods during the migrations and mixing of peoples in pre-literate Greece, Gilbert Murray suggested that the gods were\n\nexceedingly confused and cloudy and changing concepts, in the minds of thousands of diverse worshippers and non-worshippers. They change every time they are thought of... Even in the height of the Achaean wars the concept of any one god would be mixed up with traditions and associations drawn from the surrounding populations and their gods (Murray, 1951:46).\n\nBut why should these processes be apparent in modern Hong Kong?\n\nWe suggest that borrowing from other traditions during oral accounts occurs in Hong Kong for the following reasons. First, there are a large number of gods and temples in Hong Kong, each one surrounded by numerous legends and miracle stories, and many worshippers visit several temples each year. Thus, they are exposed to a variety of traditions. Second, a very large number of these worshippers entered Hong Kong from China as illiterate or semi-literate adults, and thereafter were seldom exposed to official doctrine or canonical literature. Finally, and equally important, most temples are staffed only by a caretaker and one or more fortune-tellers, neither having any interest in regulating legend. Hence, even the most devout worshippers are free to believe whatever they wish about the history and powers of their favourite deities. In the absence of sermons or widely disseminated official texts, there is little opportunity for the inhibition of legend. Naturally, believers rely on the stories they have heard when constructing narratives about temples and gods.\n\nThus, when interviewing local people for scraps of historical\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211077, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "113\n\non the right side were stitched six $1000 notes. On either side of the characters were strips of red paper with gold inscriptions wishing the young couple health and good fortune, from the various family members who had contributed the money.\n\nOutside in the street female relatives and friends of the groom were busily cleaning cooking utensils and preparing for a feast. Other women were practising banging the gong and dancing in step, in readiness for the 'Dragon Boat' dance they would perform. Although the Hoklo people in Yim Liu Ha have been settled on land for more than four decades they still retain many of their customs originally performed on water. Instead of the bridegroom being transported by boat to worship and to fetch his bride, on land he is carried along in a procession called pa lung sung (扛龍船) by pairs of women pretending to row a dragon boat.\n\nThese women are gaily dressed in matching pairs with straw hats decorated with plastic flowers and paper tassels. Round their necks they wear collars embroidered and sequinned with nine Chinese characters symbolizing good fortune: up, down, in, out, double happiness, then the same ones repeated around the other side. At their waists they wear aprons in the same colour as the collar, and each woman carries a yellow painted stick to resemble an oar. Often the family will possess its own set of wedding attire, made by a clever seamstress within the family, but in this case the whole set had been borrowed from another family.\n\nAt 10 am the procession was ready to leave the groom's home. The women formed themselves into four pairs, with one at the front to bang the gong, and another older woman at the back carrying a fan, with her left trouser leg rolled up above the knee, who was said to represent the tail of the dragon. Then, at a given signal, the women set off at a steady pace, moving in a rhythmic rocking motion to suggest the rowing of a boat.\n\nThey were followed by two men who formed the head and back part of the Chilin, while behind them walked the band banging a large gong and clashing cymbals. Then came the bridegroom and his best man, both wearing Western suits of the latest fashion, with the groom in white shirt, maroon cummerbund and matching bow", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211154, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 215, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "190\n\nOne foreign resident who knew Loo King said his presence had much to do with keeping people of better character from settling or even visiting Hongkong.\n\nThe Rev. George Smith, later to be the first Bishop of Hong-kong, after his visit to the family house of A-king in 1844, claimed that his host \"is said to encourage disreputable characters by the loan of money, and in various ways to reap the proceeds of profligacy and crime.\"\n\nIt was alleged that he had interests in pirate vessels, financing their operations and disposing of their stolen goods. The charge was never proved, but it was generally believed.\n\nAs the original conditions of the settlement changed, the power of Loo King waned and a leadership emerged that was not based on vice and criminal connections.\n\nA-king was still an important figure in 1847, for in that year he and Tam A-tsoi were the principals in the erection of the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road.\n\nTam A-tsoi's fortune was initially based on his construction business, though he soon branched out into numerous other profitable enterprises.\n\nWhile his fortunes were on the rise, those of Loo King were headed for decline. The one-time \"king\" of the Lower Bazaar was declared bankrupt in 1855. Respectability was winning the battle for control of community affairs.\n\nA new type of leadership based on solid business activities was emerging out of the rag-bag elements making up the first Chinese settlers in British Hongkong.\n\nThe fact that Loo King not long after his arrival in Hongkong had built a small temple in the Lower Bazaar, and in 1847 joined Tam A-tsoi in building the much more impressive Man Mo Temple, suggests that he wished to establish respectability for himself as a patron of the people.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211211, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 272, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "247\n\nAt this point the Anglican Bishop, the Right Reverend J. S. Burdon, calmly addressed the meeting with the voice of reason. He remarked: \"I have very grave doubts whether any public meeting gathered here is ever likely to come to any definite resolution.” This would seem to have been a fair estimate of the mood of the assembly.\n\nHe proposed that a representative committee be appointed to collect all the probable schemes with all facts necessary for their implementation. The schemes with detailed plans could then be presented to the public in written form and considered at a later meeting. He thought there probably would be only three institutions submitted for consideration, Dr. Manson's sanitarium, Mr. Crow's library, and his own pet scheme, an institution for female education. There was as well, he added, the suggestion of a statue of the Queen. His effort to steer the meeting into less troubled water was greeted with applause.\n\nMr. Stewart-Lockhart endorsed the bishop's suggestion. The meeting should be adjourned at this point as it seemed to be at a deadlock, for, as he summed it up: \"There was a question as to whether a resolution had been carried or not. Some were under the impression someone had counted wrong and others that he had counted right.\" An adjournment would allow feelings to cool, proceeding with the meeting would only further inflame them.\n\nThe chairman's wisest act during the course of the meeting was to see the sense in the proposal for an adjournment. Accordingly, he seconded the motion. It was unfortunate, however, that before doing so, he did not take up the Bishop's suggestion and have a committee appointed to receive and consider plans.\n\nThe next meeting was set for four days ahead. With fortune smiling, tempers would have cooled, proposals would have taken on solid form, and community feeling would have become more harmonious. The interval between the meetings was, however, perhaps too brief for this to happen.\n\nThe chairman, Mr. Ryrie, was criticised in the press for his inept handling of the meeting. It was reported that an attendant", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211250, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 311, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "286\n\nset in front of the shrine. I was invited to cut the first, and the 90 year old father of the Mount Davis Kaifong Welfare Association chairman was asked to cut the second. There were the usual speeches of welcome and appreciation for help given. Northern and Southern lions were brought to life by the chairman and vice-chairman of the Western District Kaifong Association, and the dancing displays followed.\n\nThe Southern lion began by taking down a lettuce, a roll of paper with money inside and a red paper with a name written on it from the upper part of the pailau. The red paper carried the name of the donor of the lucky money, who happened to be the manager of the local branch of Tao Hang Bank. The three items were suspended from the top of the pailau by a piece of string.\n\nThe front man of the two-man team used a 25 feet long stout bamboo pole, with foot rests towards one end, to reach them. The pole was hoisted, and kept in position, by about ten youths, members of the lion dance group. The front man, still in his mask, proceeded to dance at the top of the pole, in time with the drumming which accompanied the whole dance. In ten minutes he had secured the lucky money and “consumed” the lettuce (choi, synonymous for good fortune, for the community, understood). The drummer was as important as the lion dancer. He looked at the dancer with intense concentration, intensifying and diminishing the speed and volume of the drumming during the time the dancer was at the top of the pole. The effort was very taxing, and the drummer was relieved twice. He was accompanied by six persons playing gongs and cymbals. Meantime, the lion's tail was kept in place by the second man in the dance team, who held it up with a thin bamboo pole.\n\nThe vice-chairman of the Western Kaifong told me that before lion dancers were prohibited by the police from going in procession round the neighbouring streets this had been stopped about 1962 — it had been the traditional practice for the local shopkeepers to hang out the lucky packets and lettuce from the first floor of their premises, for the dancers to obtain by skill and in competition. The excitement was intense, and squabbles between the lion dance teams quite frequent.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211293, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 9, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "27 \n\nMay \n\n9 \n\n30 \n\nJune \n\n10-13 \n\n27 \n\nJuly \n\n11 \n\nAugust 1 \n\nOctober 1 \n\n17 \n\nNovember 1 \n\n26 \n\nDecember 1 \n\n10 \n\nJanuary 6 \n\n21 \n\nFebruary 24 \n\n25 \n\nMarch \n\n4 \n\n10 \n\n17 \n\n\"Women in China\" (lecture: Dr. Maria Jaschok) Cocktail Party for New Members \n\n\"Britain and Vietnam, 1948-1955\" (lecture: Prof. Mary Turnbull) \n\nVisit to Foshan (organiser: Dr. Michael Lau) \n\n\"Fortune & Safe Passage: Chinese Paper Folk Art (Kam Fa)\" (lecture: Dr. Janet Lee Scott) \n\n1 \n\n\"Ancestors\" (lecture: Mr. Frank Ching) \n\n\"Pirates in the Pearl River Delta\" (lecture: Prof. Dian Murray) \n\nVisit to Fung Ping Shan Museum, Hong Kong University (organiser: Dr. Michael Lau) \n\n**Introduction to Chinese Musical Instruments\" (lecture: Prof. Tong Kin-woon) \n\nChinese Dinner for Members \n\nTour of Central Police Station and Royal Hong Kong Police Museum (organiser: Mr. Geoffrey Roper) \"Jade Carving\" and \"Chinese Costume\" (joint lecture: Mrs. Sydney Fung and Mrs. Valery Garrett) \n\nWalk around Western District (organiser: Dr. James Hayes and others) \n\n\"Influenza: the Asian Connection\" (lecture: Prof. K. F. Shortridge) \n\nIntroduction to New Territories Villages (tour: organiser Dr. Patrick Hase) \n\n**Shanghai Entrepreneurs in Hong Kong\" (lecture: Prof. Wong Siu-lun) \n\nTour of Kowloon Walled City (organiser: Dr. James Hayes) \n\nTour of Country Parks (organisers: Dr. James Hayes and Mr. K. C. Iu) \n\n\"The Tale of the Norma Bell\" (lecture: Mr. John Chetwynd-Chatwin) \n\nAnnual General Meeting and Dinner \n\nWe are grateful to all speakers and organisers, and following last year's innovation have continued the practice of inviting them to attend the Annual Dinner as guests of the Society. It is gratifying to report that eleven of them have accepted our invitation this year. In addition, we \n\nvili", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211411, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "103\n\nlater. He had always been concerned about the future of his sons, sending the two older boys to California to seek their fortune, nurturing the two younger ones with schooling in Mills School and Punahou Preparatory School, and giving them constant counsel, as evidenced by the many letters he sent to Father in Hilo.\n\nGrandfather finally decided to go back to his native land, still depressed over the loss of his youngest child. His sight was already failing because of cataracts. In 1907 or 1908, he departed for his home village, accompanied by Aunt Yim and her family, but he stopped over in Shanghai to visit with Second Paternal Uncle and his family. After about four years, he proceeded to Hong Kong, on his way back to the village. He was met in Hong Kong by his nephew, Gut Kau, and taken to a hotel. One morning as he was reaching for a towel, he collapsed and passed away, no doubt from a heart attack, without seeing his native home again. The date of his death is recorded as 14 May 1911.\n\nGrandfather had always maintained that a nephew was like a son, and coincidentally, it was a nephew who was with him at the end and who took care of his interment. I was told that he was 63 years of age when he left Honolulu and 67 when he died. Although I have no recollection of Grandfather, I do have a mental image of a fine-looking, elderly gentleman in a Chinese cap and gown from a large photograph which graced our parlour wall for many years, and I feel a sense of pride and love for him from whom I am descended.\n\nFirst Paternal Uncle\n\nFirst Paternal Uncle was born on 3 January 1868. His 'milk name' was Ping Wing, his name upon marriage, Hee Kau, and his business name, Shing Min. He was a distinguished-looking man, tall and handsome, with nicely-formed features. He held himself erect and kept a trim figure even in his later years when I came to know him well. My father told me that his two older brothers were considered the two handsomest young men in their village. After studying English in Hong Kong and getting married, he emigrated to the United States in 1886 as a carpenter's apprentice. He eventually became connected with the Bank of Canton in San Francisco and was rumoured to be the idol of women entertainers in that city.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211413, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "105\n\nBecause of conflict between the Heong Shan and the Toy Shan cl stockholders of the bank, and depressed over the loss of Me Yuk, uncle returned to China in 1910. I remember them when they stopped over in Honolulu and the trip we took with him by taxi to the Pali. He presented Mother with a pair of etched California gold bracelets, one of which I now own. On my first visit to China in 1919, Uncle was working for the Sun Company Ltd., a large department store in Hong Kong, but he later returned to banking as the Branch Manager of the Bank of East Asia in Canton until his death during World War II.\n\none at 96 Kennedy Road, Hong Kong,\n\nM, Canton, on the bank of a small\n\nHe established two homes and the other in Lai Chee Wan river. The former was a sturdy concrete building of British design and character, while the latter was Chinese, with an enclosed courtyard and garden. Since he had accumulated a comfortable fortune, he acquired an estate in Deep Water Bay near Aberdeen, Hong Kong, where he would retreat from time to time to enjoy the beautiful flowers which his gardeners cultivated. His Kennedy Road home was like a hotel, open to relatives from the village and to other visitors as well. He found jobs for male relatives from the village who wanted to work in the city; he contributed to the support of needy kinsmen; and he paid a percentage of the debt owed to creditors of the family pawn shop which had failed during Grandfather's tenure. He was a true head of the house, assuming responsibilities for the care and support of many.\n\n1\n\nSometime before 1919 when Uncle got settled again, he brought into the household his \"Third Concubine\", a native of Sun Yup. Born on 12 December 1897, she was considerably younger than Uncle. Uncle seemed quite fond of her. This was probably threatening to both First Aunt and Small Aunt, for the former then adopted a son, Po Nin, who was born on 17 February 1908, but he died from tuberculosis when he was in his teens. Small Aunt tried very hard to conceive by frequently going to the temple to pray for a son and miraculously became pregnant and bore a son, Po Ling, on 10 May 1915. A great deal of rivalry existed between the two concubines that resulted in intrigues and accusations until eventually Uncle reluctantly had to send Third Concubine out of his household, reportedly because there was proof of her infidelity. However, he gave her a sum of money in order that she could learn to be a midwife and become self-supporting. It is reported", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211529, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 246, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "222\n\nThroughout all the years in which he was accumulating a fortune by selling American flour for American millers, Mr. Rennie never displayed any friendship for this country. His contempt for American institutions undoubtedly caused him to believe that he could beat American millers at their own game, and it was in the attempt to supplant them in the flour trade of the Orient that he met his Waterloo, and for the present at least put an end to flour milling in China. The failure has been so complete and overwhelming that the field will for a long time be regarded with misgivings.\n\nA TRADITIONAL NEW TERRITORIES LATRINE\n\nIn Volume 23 (1983) of the Journal, in a Note entitled “Traditional New Territories Farming: Manuring\", I discussed the traditional New Territories type of village latrine.1 Recently, a traditional New Territories village latrine in full working order was drawn to my attention, and, since these latrines are now very rare, and will very soon be entirely a thing of the past, I felt it would be worth while taking a plan of the latrine, and giving a description of it.2\n\nThe latrine in question was built of field stones, set in a mud mortar. The wall was thickly faced with mud, which in turn was covered with thick lime plaster. This method of construction requires the walls to be rather thick, and in this case the walls were from 1 foot to 1 foot 3 inches thick. The roof was of tiles, laid double thickness for coolness. These were laid on pine beams resting directly on the top of the walls. Because of the weak construction of the walls it was essential to stop rainwater from running down the walls and washing out the mud which held them together: the eaves therefore overhung the walls by about 9 inches. The foundations of the walls were of plastered stone, and projected several inches beyond the line of the walls. The walls themselves only began some inches above ground level, again to keep damp away from the mud.\n\nThe latrine formed a rectangle 16 feet long by 14 feet 3 inches wide on the outside, and about 14 feet by 11 feet inside. The height of the walls to the springing of the roof was 6 feet 1 inch outside, and 5 feet 10 inches inside; the structure was gabled, and the additional height under", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211562, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 279, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "255\n\nLam Pin near the original village of Cha Sai to start a business. Upon his death, the 17th generation ancestor like those of the 13th to 16th generations was buried near his heung-ha of Tso Po. Not long after getting married, however, the 18th generation ancestor (my father's father) decided to emigrate overseas, leaving the family business to his four brothers in Lam Pin. My grandfather never returned to China and was buried overseas, where the rest of his family continued to live. The four brothers of this 18th generation ancestor died, unfortunately without male survivors and were buried near Lam Pin. Our house in Lam Pin has since been occupied by close (affinal) relatives, and the old house in Tso Po was eventually abandoned, remnants of which still stand. I was told also that those family members living overseas are now the only living survivors of that fong beginning from the 13th generation ancestor in Tso Po. Despite the many generations, there were a few other descendants from the 13th generation once or twice removed, but they too died without male survivors, leaving us therefore with the task of tending to their graves. These graves now include all those from the 13th to 17th generation ancestors at Tso Po and those of the 18th generation at Lam Pin. The funny thing about this explicitly genealogical account, however, is that my father never knew we had ancestors at Tso Po.\" He had likewise passed on to me the firm impression that we were Cha Sai villagers, and we usually address ourselves as Cha Sai villagers living at Lam Pin. According to elders, there was no question that our heung-ha was Tso Po. Bad fortune was probably what led the 17th generation ancestor to move to Lam Pin, but it was the 18th generation ancestors who began to dissociate themselves from Tso Po (due to bad fortune rather than change of residence). Thus, our change of heung-ha to Cha Sai represented less a nostalgic return to the past than a change of circumstances in an ongoing (re-)definition of that local life-situation.\n\nIf the meaning of locality is as complex as suggested by the above example, then what about the so-called \"single-lineage village\", one may ask? Contrary to appearance, such villages are less conscious of the fact that they live as a common descent group than of the fact they share relations of closeness (chan (C), ch'in (M)). It is easier perhaps to explain why a single-surname village remains a single-surname village than to explain how such a village came to be so in the first place. The continuity of a single-surname village has less to do with the descent principle per se than with a customary rule of marriage residence. A", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211615, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Cinema, at North Point (constructed in the early 1950s), is suspended; or the English style, Kentish-Rag, stone retaining wall on the south side of Battery Path in Central. One wonders if the latter was commissioned by some homesick Englishman.\n\nAnd, while parts of the Territory have been disparagingly called \"concrete jungle”, there are modern structures of merit. Depending on your taste, the St. John's Building (Lower Peak-Tram Station), Admiralty Centre; and the Macau Ferry Terminal spring to mind. The foyer at the Landmark, and the high-rise, high-tech Exchange Square, with its \"electronic plumbing\" so tenants can plug in for centralised computer services, are also of merit. Other recently completed buildings show an impressive degree of distinction and aesthetic sensitivity.\n\nIn an article written by Doctor Alan Birch in 1978, previously Reader in History at Hong Kong University, he stated that 95 per cent of the Territory's buildings had been erected from 1946 onwards (even if the deterioration of some belies their age). Although that was probably a very approximate estimate, since then many more old buildings have been torn down. Hong Kong is a city-state where, with the exception of the plot on which Saint John's Cathedral stands (which is freehold), all land is leasehold held from the Crown: this demands that landholders maximise their income from the land in as short a time as possible.\n\nTo give some idea how dramatically the skyline has changed: until World War II the seven-storey Peninsula Hotel, on the Kowloon waterfront, which served as the Japanese army headquarters during the occupation, was considered tall. Since then, the skyline has changed dramatically every decade.\n\nCatherine II (Catherine the Great) (1729-96), Empress of Russia, who together with her many architects erected royal palaces and public buildings, said that building was a disease, like alcoholism. Not too dissimilarly, in Hong Kong, Aw Boon Haw, the son of a Chinese herbalist, who together with his brother, Boon Par, produced the famous \"cure-all\", Tiger Balm, was told by a sooth-sayer that he would lose his fortune and die if he stopped building. When he eventually departed he had erected 26 castles around Asia, as well as the well-known Tiger Balm Gardens in both Singapore and Hong Kong. These, which contain figures depicting stories in Chinese history or mythology, were built to promote Aw's well-known pharmaceutical products.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211655, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 70, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "45\n\nOn another occasion the main Wang Yeh of the Five was on his way to Hsikang in central Taiwan on a tour of inspection when he encountered a demon causing trouble. He had gathered together a large force of spirit soldiers from the Underworld and was causing great hardship and harm to the local people. The Wang Yeh summoned the other four Wang Yeh and, with help from Kuan Yin, the local City God, and the Ma Tsu from Peikang, he defeated the demon and his army but suffered a wound to his head. Although repeated efforts have been made by craftsmen to repair the damage to his head the wound can still be seen today. Some say that the wound on the Wang Yeh's head was the result of his fight with the Yu Ying Kung, but whatever the reason might be, the people look upon the deity as a hero.\n\nIn Fulai, a village near Chia1 in central Taiwan, the main Pestilence Wang Yeh of the five on the altar is afforded an honour generally reserved for powerful major deities like Kuan Kung. He possesses a horse whose image stands alongside the side wall of the main hall of the temple.\n\nThough the Pestilence Wang Yeh are 'popular' deities they have their demonic aspects as well as their divine and are in general looked upon as dangerous, awesome and fearsome spirits to be approached with great circumspection. A number of devotees believe that the task of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is to police the World and control demons. While a small minority regard them as healing gods the majority believe that their function is to ward off and even attack demonic influence. If the attack is successful, it leads to a cure.\n\nBeing awesome deities the Pestilence Wang Yeh are only worshipped when devotees have a problem which requires the dispersal or destruction of malignant and demonic forces. Only very rarely are these deities approached by worshippers seeking advice and therefore the use of fortune slips and forms of communication such as divining blocks between the devotees and the deities are not usually to be found on the altars dedicated simply to them. Divining blocks are used however when temple committees wish to ascertain the views and wishes of Wang Yeh concerning his personal circumstances such as the location or use of his images.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh are not approached for aid and advice as are, say, agricultural or fertility deities. Their role is limited to protection, and by extension to cures from pestilential diseases. They are, however,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211663, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "53\n\nwere destroyed but at the end of the campaign (ca 1127 BC) Lu was made President of the Celestial Ministry of Epidemics () with his four disciples as his senior departmental officials. The coincidence of the number five, and of them dying from epidemics before their due date of death, suggests that these five might be the precursors to the Five Plague Gods of much later times. Lu is described as having red hair, a blue face, fangs and a third eye, and it is therefore not surprising that god carvers have used this description when making Wang Yeh, and a number of images of the Wang Yeh on altars in Taiwan and South-East Asia have blue faces, red hairs and fangs though none has been seen with a third eye. It was interesting to encounter a Hakka ancestral image on a public altar in northern Taiwan which had a bright blue face. This was explained to be so because the ancestor, a Mr Huang, was a Ta Jen, an alternate form of Wang Yeh, a worthy and not a Pestilence deity; but because many of the temples around had Pestilence Wang Yeh and their faces were blue, red or green, it had been decided that the worthy Mr Huang should have a blue face too.\n\nAccording to the Yeh Wang Yeh legend in Tainan, Yeh himself took part in fund raising to build his cult temple in Fukien province. He disguised himself as an old man and went to Fuchou to buy the wood necessary to build the temple and also sent instructions to the villagers in their dreams that he would like his effigy to be carved in camphor wood to be placed on the roof. This they had carved, and when it was delivered to the site the timbers for the temple's construction arrived without anyone appearing to have carried them there, leaving the villagers only the task of erecting the building.\n\nFishermen in 1795 found an unmanned bamboo raft near the island of Haifeng on which there was a tablet dedicated to Chang, Li and Moh, Three Wang Yeh. They built a shrine on the island dedicated to the three and later the tablets were moved to the present temple at T'ai Hsi in Yunlin county on the west coast of Taiwan.\n\nOther groups of five deities in Taiwan have similar and on occasions identical legends and are believed to be able to control or prevent epidemics. They too are also prayed to for a cure by the sick, and for the maintenance of good health by the hale and hearty. Temple keepers on occasions identify them as Pestilence Wang Yeh though they are not officially referred to as such. These groups include The Five Great Emperors of Fortune (Wu Fu Ta Ti), and the Five Efficacious Lords", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211664, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "54\n\n(Wu Ling Kung). The helpful keeper of a Wu Fu Ta Ti temple in Tsoying, sited almost opposite the Kaohsiung Temple of Confucius, named the Five Great Emperors of Fortune, Liu, Chin, Chang, Shih and Chao. He was also able to provide the personal names of each and identified them as five scholars who had died in an attempt to save Fuchou from pestilence demons. Four of the Wu Fu Ta Ti images have standard human faces though with nothing unique to identify them individually; the fifth, however, has a bird's beak on his demonic face and in some temples his skin is blue. No temple keeper has been able to offer a reason for this.\n\nLegends about the Pestilence Wang Yeh highlight that all the spirits which became such deities had died an unnatural death, the most popular being the deprivation of the lives of scholars before their due dates of death at the whim of the emperor.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh were in the main scholars; in some legends ones who had been unsuccessful in the civil service examinations and in others ones who had been successful, who died before their due date either violently or by suicide. This made them spirits to be feared, potentially vengeful and dangerous ghosts who could inflict disease, though through happy circumstances they had all been deified and therefore to an extent placated, and their dangerous potential somewhat nullified.\n\nWhilst this article is primarily about Pestilence Wang Yeh now let us turn to local protective deities which also bear the title of Wang Yeh but are not Pestilence deities. The origins of each individual Wang Yeh as related in its cult centre or local village shrine provides a pattern which can best be discerned from the following examples. Legends describe how named individuals, frequently a local who died an unnatural death either fending off bandits, providing for the weak or performing some other public spirited act, were deified. As referred to earlier, the best example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Koxinga, the son of a pirate and a defender of the native Ming dynasty which was crumbling before the invading Manchus, foreigners who later established the final imperial dynasty in China, the Ch'ing. Koxinga drove the Dutch out of their base in Taiwan and for this act, eliminating foreign rule, he became the patron deity of the island.\n\nA typical title, which at first would appear to be far from straight forward, is that of the rural temple near Tainan dedicated to the San Lao Yeh (=). The three, Wei (), Chu (✯) and Ts'ao (W)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211705, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Weights and Measures \n\nLength \n\n1 fen \n\n1 ts'un (Chinese inch) \n\n1 ch'ih (1 Chinese foot) \n\n1 li (1 Chinese Mile) \n\nWeight \n\n1 chin (1 Chinese catty) \n\n1 tan (100 Chinese catties) \n\nArea \n\n1 mu \n\n \n\nMetric \n\n3.725 mm \n\n3.715 cm \n\n37.15 cm \n\n648-681 m \n\n604.8 g \n\n60.48 kg \n\n1/6 acre \n\n95 \n\nIncense Cultivation \n\nJoss stick manufacture is a branch of the incense industry, which is a traditional activity in Hong Kong dating back at least 400 years. It was first developed as a primary industry concentrating on the cultivation of and trade in incense trees. Then the industry gradually expanded into the manufacturing sector as incense wood was ground into incense powder before being exported. After the exhaustion of the incense trees, the industry expanded completely into the industrial secondary sector, making joss sticks from imported incense powder. \n\nAquilaria sinensis, the fragrant incense tree, was once cultivated in Hong Kong. In the late Ming period, the county of Tung-kuan was renowned for the quality of its incense. Until 1572, Tung-kuan county included the area subsequently forming the county of Hsin-an (including the present day New Territories area). Tung-kuan incense was famous throughout China, but was particularly favoured in the lower Yangtze area around Su-chou. In Kuang-tung hsin-yü, it is noted that many Tung-kuan people made their fortune from Kuan-hsiang (meaning incense from Tung-kuan) which was so popular that the annual sales values amounted to tens of thousands of taels. The business boomed, especially during the mid-autumn festival when people around Su-chou and Sung-chiang burnt incense overnight to \"fumigate the moon\". As a result, the stock of Kuan-hsiang was sold out in as short a period as one night.' \n\nPage 1\n\n \n\n \n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211816, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "206\n\n(...) Our first favourite was Captain Copp. This is a glorious character and was performed faultlessly [by Benjamin BLUSTER-JH]. From the first moment we made his acquaintance until we took a reluctant leave of him, our heart was kept in a continuous glow by his honest face, his blunt, sea-faring manner; his rugged but kindly touches of feeling, harmonically blended together as they were by his ceremonial bursts of good humoured jollity. Every time he broke out with his favourite stave\n\n'In the time of the Dump\n\nWhen Old Admiral Trump'\n\nwe felt a strong inclination to hear more of it and were scarcely pleased with Mary for stopping it so abruptly. (...) Mary's taste in the choice of a lover was unexceptionable - a compliment which cannot be said with truth, of pretty girls generally. The page who was the favoured suitor deserved his good fortune: he played well and sung sweetly. It is some time indeed since we heard on the stage or elsewhere a song given with so much taste and expression (...). No wonder the pretty Mary melted under the influence of the mellow tones of such a music master\". And Mary? She was played of course by Mrs NESBIT who \"as usual placed before us a lively picture of the piquant and coquettish, but withal modest and pretty niece of the host of the 'Grand Admiral'; and she looked so enticing as to make some of those who were present and near us wish that they too were actors provided there was plenty of kissing in the play and such a delightful subject as herself to practice upon”. (NCH 20.3.1858). Again it should be stressed that all female characters were portrayed by men, which, paradoxically, probably allowed the critic to write in such a vein!\n\n5.5.1858 (Wedn)\n\nJ. COURTNEY: \"Time Tries All\" (1848)\n\nT: Drama (2 acts)\n\nJ.S. COYNE: “Urgent Private Affairs\" (1856) T: Farce (1 act)\n\nW.B. RHODES: \"Bombastes Furioso\" (1810) T: Burlesque tragic opera (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music by the band of H.M.S. Highflyer\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (C)\n\nN: Third and final performance of the season\n\nR: For a house that was \"crowded to the doors\" the curtain rose on a new drop scene **of a light and pretty character\". Once more Mrs. NESBIT could be admired, in Time Tries All, as Laura Leeson and \"too much credit could not be extended on her for the manner in which she brought before us the wilful, pettish but withal warm-hearted woman\". As her husband, Mr. Leeson, \"Mr. ROLLER was most successful; he has made for himself a 'spécialité' in this line of characters which it would be difficult to surpass or to replace. Mr. PICKWICK played the role of Matthew Bates and by **his judicious, quiet acting gained considerable and well-merited applause\". Mr. TINTINNABULUM (who also sung a \"pretty Irish ballad\") as the Hon Mr. Yawn \"was capital and exercised the propensity with which his cognomen so plainly gifts him with such arts as to make many of the audience strenuously follow his example\"; whereas Miss Fact and Mr. Tact found fit representatives in Miss WALTERS and Mr. BRUSWOOD. Some of the actors again appeared in the closing piece; Bombastes Furioso when Mr. Beverley NEWCOME impersonated General Bombastes, “a creditable performance, but the role was evidently not so well suited to the powers of that gentleman as other parts in which we have seen him\". King Artaxominous was taken by Mr. PICKWICK, Furbos by Mr. TINTINNABULUM and Destafina by Mrs. NESBIT. Concluding, the reviewer was \"especially pleased with the scenery of this and other", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211902, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 317, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "292\n\nhas to keep up about a dozen of these servants, for each one only does one thing.\n\nOn Thursday morning weighed anchor. There was scarcely any breeze, and it was only a short distance we made, before we stopped at night. On Friday we were off again, and got a little breeze. About midnight through sheer ignorance and carelessness the ship dashed onto the Aganeiten rocks, and there was a fine crash. The captain was quite paralysed, and did not know what to do. The ship would have doubtless broken up and never been got off; but all at once the wind changed and blew her clean away from danger. Truly a merciful Providence attends us, or we should long ago have gone to the bottom. The captain evinced his gratitude when his fright was over by cursing and swearing worse than before, and bullying the men. In fact the men are continually on the point of mutiny. All I wonder at is that they have not done so before.\n\nWe reached the strait of Banca at last, after several days without wind. As we entered we passed the mail steamer to Batavia, and a Dutch ship aground. We were three days going through, on account of the wind. At night we stopped off another Dutch ship going to Singapore and Hong Kong. In the morning she was off an hour before us. Our masts are not yet only half up, so that in a few hours she was out of sight. The captain does not intend to finish the masts till he gets to Hong Kong, although that was the excuse for going to Batavia.\n\nThe breeze grew a little fresher toward evening, and at night we were going on about five miles an hour. Early in the morning, I heard the cry \"Breakers ahead\", and in another moment came another crash or two, and the ship was dashing on a coral reef. Two large rocks wedged us in, and there we were, expecting to go to pieces since the sea and wind increased and there was no chance of getting off. We were right in the middle of the Toedjoe Islands, which are considered as very dangerous. The captain did not even try to get her off. About noon however with our usual good fortune in difficulties, the water rose about 10 feet, and by sending out an anchor in the ship's pinnace, we drew the ship gradually out of danger, and got clear again. This was celebrated as before by renewed blasphemy.\n\nJuly 25th\n\nWe have now crossed the line, and are less than a thousand miles", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211926, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 341, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "316\n\nG. Gwok-Yin jou\n\nA segment of the Ching Lok Tong worth mentioning is the Gwok-Yin jou, which has a small ancestral hall in Wing Lung Wai. It has ancestral tablets for Lam-Mau (one of the great grandsons of Fong in the 20th generation), two of his sons, neither of whom had had any descendants, and Gwok-Yin his third son (with a title of mou-leuk-ke-wai), and Lam-Mau's grandsons Chiu-Yip, Chiu-Yung, Gwan-Leung (also with a title of mou-leuk-ke-wai) and Gwan-Haak. Dang Ying-Yun, a grandson of Gwan-Leung, is represented by a horizontal inscribed board to congratulate his mou-geui-yan degree award in 1789. In all likelihood, the titles of Gwok-Yin and Gwan-Leung were conferred in consideration of the imperial degree of this descendant of theirs.\n\n13\n\nSung (1974:173-174) provides some information about Dang Ying-Yun. He wrote the calligraphy for many inscriptions, including those for the repair of the Jau and Wong Temple in 1824 and the rebuilding of the Ling-Wan Monastery in 1821. His involvement in public affairs was not limited to calligraphy. Sung recorded the oral tradition that he was instrumental in the construction of a fortress in the present Kowloon City and a county school in its capital town.\n\nH. Ji-Ga Tong\n\n14\n\nAccording to his descendants and other informants, Ji-Ga Tong prospered after the marriage of Dang Kyun-Hin (1755-1822), its founder. He was a member of the Fourth Branch, the descendants of Gyun, and was originally poor. He had worked when he was young for a Gwok-Yin jou person known as Haan sau-choi who had a peanut oil factory. His wife was a servant girl of the sau-choi's. The family prospered afterwards. The good fortune was partly attributed to the wife. The family was very large and wealthy. According to oral tradition recorded by Sung (1974:175-176), Dang Kyun-Hin \"had four sons and twenty-four grandsons and the number of his family and servants together are said to have totalled two hundred.” He built a hall called Sou-Lau Yun, better known to local villages as Ji-Ga Tong, which term is also used for the lineage segment consisting of his descendants. Chung-Shaan, one of his sons, built a hall called Cheung-Cheun Yun which had two side rooms, one for a school and one for martial arts. When he died, a banquet was held in Ji-Ga Tong for seven days. The guests included some people from Yuen Long and Pat Heung. The youngest of Kyun-Hin's sons, Yu-", "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": 212096, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "15\n\ndeities worshipped in the local temples, a Chinese author touches on one important aspect of these events:\n\n**In raising the funds they [the organizers] talk about their god, what he did in the past and what he still means to the people. The theatricals dramatize the divine history. The idol in the temple characterizes him. The tablets and the scrolls in the temple and the opera matshed] call to mind his traits and his relation to the people.**25\n\nIt was the practice on these occasions to prepare and distribute festival brochures which contain such information. This was a tradition that was followed in some of the more popular Tsuen Wan temples.\n\n(c) The Surroundings\n\nAs if the process of indoctrination was not already thorough, the decoration of the temples and the better class of houses, shops and ancestral halls provided a milieu in which cultural influences were strong and could make an impression on youthful minds. Although a small place, Tsuen Wan District had its share of old buildings (and some not so old, dating from as late as the 1920s and 1930s) whose walls were decorated with eaves-paintings in the traditional style. Besides depicting the usual auspicious symbols for long life, good fortune, advancement, wealth and posterity, and the flowers and animals with similar associations, they also carried paintings of well-known stories and persons known to history or from the opera. Verses from T'ang poetry were also commonly included.29 Obviously, the better class of local buildings were not to be regarded as complete without this impressive cultural array.\n\n(d) The Lion and Unicorn Dance Teams\n\n30\n\nBesides what was taught in the rural schoolroom and learned outside its doors, one of the most powerful influences upon young village males was undoubtedly exercised through their training in the village lion or unicorn dance team. In Tsuen Wan and the other settlements of the Hong Kong region, these teams were at the heart of village ceremony. On social, political or religious occasions, they were the personification of the village's collective respect for important visitors and the means of marking the main events in the social life of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212101, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "20\n\nenough, it was to be remembered and duly acknowledged long after. A contemporary example from the Tsuen Wan villages may be used to exemplify these continuing obligations.\n\nThe endeavours of one of my Tsuen Wan village friends to recognize and continue to honour help given to his family in the distant past is a striking example of the kind. The founding ancestor of his clan had settled in a small village outside Tsuen Wan in 1724; but as sometimes happened in the local settlements the family did not prosper, and for three or four generations just managed to produce enough adult males to survive. A crisis ensued when the only adult male in one of the later generations died when still a young man, leaving behind a pregnant wife. By great good fortune, a family from another of the clans living in the village took pity on her; and after she gave birth to a boy who was reared to adulthood the future of my friend's family was again secured. This happened around 150 years ago. The descendants of this other family died out or went away pre-war never to return. When part of the village burial area was needed for development in the 1970s, my friend approached the District Office for a resiting of one of the old graves of the other clan. He was not applying for cash compensation as he was willing to pay all the expenses, but he did want another site in order to express, in tangible form, his family's continuing gratitude for the kindness done to the young widow so long ago. This was provided.\n\nAnother instance of a similar kind involved the old grave of a husband and wife, dated to 1813, which had to be removed for development at Sam Pak Tsin, Texaco Road, Tsuen Wan about 1975. Elders from another lineage belonging to Hoi Pa Village had responded to our notices posted on site, stating their obligation to arrange for removal and reburial of the remains. They said that the link with the persons buried in the grave was through the female side of their family but was no longer known clearly to even its oldest living members.40\n\nIn another, even older expression of gratitude for past assistance, the Ho clan of Muk Min Ha Old Village (settled in 1712) had built a special hall next to their main ancestral temple to honour a man of another surname who had helped their founding ancestor. One of this man's daughters had married the newcomer, and land had been given which enabled him to make a good start in a new place. The donor's clan still lives in one of the hill villages of the District. When Muk", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212105, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "24\n\n30\n\nSir George Thomas Staunton, a member of the 1793-94 Macartney Embassy, whose translation of Ch'ing Law was the first published in Britain, had been at pains to emphasize this: Ta Tsing Leu Lee, Being the Fundamental Laws... of the Penal Code of China (London, Cadell and Davies, 1801), p. 185. For its application in practice see the cases translated with commentary in Derk Bodde and Clarence Morris, Law in Imperial China, Exemplified by 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967).21 Cited in Corinne K. Hoexter, From Canton to California, The Epic of Chinese Immigration (New York, Four Winds Press, 1976), p. 136.\n\n11 Dr. William Lockhart of the London Missionary Society, writing in 1861, cites the case of the old scholar who so greatly assisted Dr. W.H. Medhurst with his translations and researches. See his The Medical Missionary in China (London, Hurst and Blackett. 2nd edition, 1861), pp. 21-22. \"He was a living concordance of the entire range of Chinese literature. He could find any passage without hesitation, repeat page after page of most of the works, and could easily take up any citation which had been begun in his hearing, and finish it without hesitation. This is not an uncommon thing amongst the educated Chinese, but this man possessed the faculty in a remarkable degree\".\n\n23 Arthur Evans Moule, The Chinese People, A Handbook on China (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1941), p. 262. See also his New China and Old, Personal Recollections and Observations of Thirty Years (London, Seeley and Co., 1891), p. 271.24 Some of the literary material to be found in villages of the Hong Kong region is described in Dr. Patrick Hase's most useful paper. \"Research Materials for Village Studies\", Chapter 4 of Alan Birch, Y.C. Jao and Elizabeth Sinn (eds.) Research Materials for Hong Kong Studies (Hong Kong. Centre of Asian Studies. University of Hong Kong, 1984), pp. 31-46, especially between pp. 32-37.\n\n25\n\n—\n\nBy great good fortune, some of their libraries have survived and are in safe keeping. One of them came from Hoi Pa Village, Tsuen Wan, and had belonged to the builder of the traditional village house there which is now a listed monument. He lived between 1865 and 1937, and after his return from Jamaica engaged in educational pursuits in a literary club and at the Luen Fong School in Hoi Pa Kwan Mun Hau. When what had survived of his library was presented to the Urban Services Department in 1982, it consisted of some 200 books of various kinds, as well as manuscript essays and poems, including some of the famed \"eight-legged essays\" written in preparation for the imperial examination; all providing valuable documentation for the educational, social and intellectual activities of their period. South China Morning Post, 26 May 1982. See also the Chinese press of that date.\n\n16 What Francis C.M. Wei calls the operation of the principle of retributive justice\" featured prominently in Chinese stories. See his The Spirit of Chinese Culture (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), p. 151. See also Yao Chin-nung, \"The Theme and Structure of the Yuan Drama\", in Tien Hsia Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4 (November 1935), p. 392.27 The Tsuen Wan experience is echoed in the fine description of what it meant to be a village boy in late 19th century Kwangtung, contained in the memoirs of a successful Hawaiian Chinese, born in a village near Macau in 1865. In them, he describes what one might call the \"extra-curricular\" part of education. This included the telling of traditional stories by the family elders and by itinerant minstrels and story-tellers, and through the plays performed by visiting opera troupes, as well as in literary pastimes: Chung Kun Ai, My Seventy Nine Years in Hawaii (1879-1958) (Hong Kong, Cosmorama Pictorial Publisher, 1960), pp. 6, 26-29.\n\n28 Francis C.M. Wei, The Spirit of Chinese Culture (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947) p. 149.\n\n24\n\nFor the former, see the chapter \"Symbol and Tradition\" between pp. 50-75 of Ronald", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212122, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "41\n\nKong: Oxford Univ. Press, 1983), 156-160 & 163-164, on the Jiao festivals celebrated between 1964 and 1972 in Ma Tau Wai, Nga Tsin Wai, Tung Chung and Tai O.\n\nN Mathias, John R.G., Study of the Jiao: a Taoist Ritual in Kam Tin in the Hong Kong New Territories (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1977-78).\n\n#I Kani, Hiroaki, \"Hồn Kôn Chugokujin no shukyo shiso no ichidan nitsuite\" Shigaku 40, no. 2 & 3 (1967).\n\n22\n\nObuchi, Ninji, “Hon Kon no tokyo girei\" |Daoist ritual in Hong Kong] in Ikeda Sueri Hakase Koki Kinen Toyo Gaku Ronshu (Tokyo, 1980), 753-769.\n\n27 Yoshihara, Katsuo. \"Shukyo\" [Religion] in Kani Hiroaki (ed.) Motto Shiritai Hon Kon (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1984), 184-191.\n\n11\n\nSee note 37.\n\n14\n\nI have been told that Dr. Faure had a manuscript on the Jiao festival sent to a publisher in Hong Kong. However, due to whatever reasons, it has not yet been published. See also Hayes, 164, about Faure's book on Jiao festivals.\n\n36 I was probably the only researcher who participated in the 1980 Kau Lau Wan Jiao festival when I was first introduced by the late Prof. B.E. Ward and Dr. S.H. Wang to the Jiao festival celebrated by the fishing village. In October the same year, Dr. Faure and I attended the Jiao festival at Pak Kong, Sai Kung. In November, the late Dr. Lu Bin-chuan of the Music Department of CUHK, Dr. Lu's student Mr. Chan Wing-Hoi and I attended the Jiao festival in Fanling. Dr. Faure, Prof. Ward and Prof. Tanaka also came. The Jiao festival of Fanling and that of other areas are mentioned here and there in Faure's 1986 book. In December 1980 students of CUHK under the guidance of Dr. Faure, Dr. Wang and Prof. Ward started an ethnographical research on the Jiao festival in Ho Chung, Sai Kung. A detailed report of daily rituals was written by Lee Lai-mui and Cheng Shui Kwan, two CUHK students majoring in History and minoring in Anthropology. The report was sent to interested scholars. Unfortunately it has never been published. Two students of the CUHK at that time should perhaps be mentioned here: Chan Wing-hoi, who specializes in music and computer, was employed by the History Museum of Hong Kong to study the Kam Tin Jiao festival in 1985, a report of which was published in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29 (1989). Chan's master's thesis on folk music in Hong Kong also includes a chapter on the ritual music played by the Taoists at the Jiao festival. Chan also has an ethnography on the 1986 Shek O Jiao festival published in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 26 (1986), 78-101. The master's thesis of Leung Chor-on, now Ph.D. candidate of Cambridge University, submitted to the Anthropology Department of the CUHK gives a good account of the ritual symbols of the festival. Chan, Leung and I held a seminar on Jiao festivals on Dec. 11, 1988 for the \"Research Circle of the Regional Society of Southern China\" focusing on musical, ritual and social aspects of the festival.\n\n27 Locally published works besides those by Faure and my own are:\n\n-\n\n(a) Chamberlain, Jonathan, \"Introduction” in Chamberlain J. and Iam Lambot The Bun Festival of Cheung Chau (Hong Kong: Studio Publication, 1990). This is largely a collection of photos. Chamberlain's introduction is very descriptive but no sources are quoted.\n\n(b) Chan Wing-hoi, “Observations at the Jiu [Jiao] festival of Shek O and Tai Long Wan, 1986\" Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 26 (1986), 78-101. Chan recorded meticulously what he was told and observed about the 'settlement', the 'participants', the \"ritual site\", the \"local gods\" and the \"events\".\n\n(c) Xiao, Kuo-jian (Anthony K.K. Siu), Xianggang Xiandai Shehui [Pre-modern society of Hong Kong] (Hong Kong: Chung Wah, 1990), 86-97. Xiao attempts to illustrate three reasons why the communities in Hong Kong celebrate the Jiao. The first reason is to plead for fortune, to pay sacrifices to the gods, to drive away evils and to prevent\n\n4", "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": 212134, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "53\n\n1\n\n景案\n\n+\n\n'brilliant scholars', and a Christian community ching-chung\n\nthe 'brilliant assembly'. The Christian monasteries which\n\nappeared all over China in Kao-tsung's reign filled the land with 'brilliant happiness', ching-fu. Christ is described as 'the brilliant and reverend (ching-ch'uan) Messiah'. At his birth a brilliant star (ching-shu) told of good fortune'. In the most emotionally-charged context of all, ching occurs in a veiled and ambiguous reference to the crucifixion: the Messiah 'hung up a brilliant sun (ching-jih) to take by storm the halls of darkness'. The use of the character ching in this way shows that the composer of the Sian tablet inscription wanted to extend and deepen its normal meaning 'brilliant', thereby adding to its effectiveness as a descriptive term for Christianity.\n\nUntil the beginning of this century the Sian tablet was the only source for the expression Ta-ch'in ching-chiao, Syrian brilliant teaching', as an official identity for Nestorian Christianity in T’ang China. We now have more evidence for its use. The expression occurs in a number of Nestorian manuscripts discovered in 1980 at Tun-huang, where there was a Nestorian monastery in the Tang period. Altogether seven separate works, all in Chinese, have been discovered. Two, the Book of Jesus the Messiah, and the Essay on Monotheism, are seventh-century documents composed shortly after Reuben's arrival in China, and neither the geographical term Ta-ch'in nor the descriptive term ching-chiao are found in these early works. Of the other five works, one, the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy, contains three occurrences of the term ching-chiao, but none of Ta-ch'in. The manuscripts of three other works, the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, and the Book of the Origin of Origins, all display Ta-ch'in ching-chiao prominently in their titles, but neither Ta-ch'in nor ching-chiao occurs in their contents. All three works, however, are listed in a fifth work, the Book of Praise, with the phrase Ta-ch'in ching-chiao omitted from their titles. The Book of Praise, which was found together with the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity on a single manuscript, is rather different in style from the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity. It contains one reference to Ta-ch'in pen-chiao, ‘our teachings of Syria', but does not contain the expression ching-chiao, 'brilliant teaching'. All occurrences of ching-chiao in these documents use the curious variant form of the character ching found on the Sian tablet.\n\n12", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212159, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "78\n\nicon form on minor altars in Taiwan. These icons are understandable as portraits of Sun the 'Father of the Nation' appear with those of Chiang Kai-shek in offices, schools, barracks etc. where they were bowed to each morning as a sign of respect. Among the less literate and more superstitious it is not difficult to see how this has led to such icons appearing on altars with incense burnt before them.\n\nIn the mid-1960s, the Kuomintang organised a political demonstration in Cambodia on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, the middle of the month during which Hungry Spirits return to the human world for thirty days. During the demonstration public sacrifices to the spirits of the victims of the communists in China were performed. There was also talk of deification of one or two but this came to nothing.\n\nIt has not been unknown for outstanding living persons to have a sanctuary built in their honour. The magistrate of Ch'ing-ho district in Hopei was such a man. He brought about a substantial reduction in taxes and other government levies and thus lightened the financial burden on a hard pressed people. In 1886, two years after he had been transferred to administer another district, the grateful populace of Ch'ing-ho built a shrine in his honour.\n\nIn Singapore in 1970 a new cult was founded near Woodlands on the northern tip of the island when the deity, Wu T'ien Chu, appeared to a Singapore Fukienese man in a dream. The deity explained to the Fukienese that he, Wu T'ien-chu [The Military Master of Heaven], was a mighty deity who had chosen the Fukienese man to become the 'Master Warrior' of his cult. He required a new bungalow to be converted into accommodation for the founder with the lounge becoming the altar hall. He told the Fukienese man that he would protect his devotees, cure their illnesses and bring them good fortune. A statue of the deity was carved in the likeness of the spirit as he appeared in the founder's dream and placed on the altar. The founder, the Fukienese man, explained that with his wide knowledge of all religions he encourages devotees from every nation and creed to worship in his temple. He explained that the world's most powerful deity is the Jade Emperor, with Sakyamuni, The Buddha, as his deputy. Next in seniority is Kuan Yin followed by Wu T'ien-chu who has a great many assistants and warriors under his charge, none of whom is ever portrayed in image form. He continued that the four pillars of the cult are \"the four gods (shen) of other religions, Buddha, Christ, the Pope and Mohammed”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212183, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "102\n\nTo attend one of the Saturday night dinners, organised at this time at the International Club by a genial secretary of the British Embassy, was really an experience in cosmopolitan friendship. In addition to leading Chinese officials, there would be present persons of a great variety of walks in life and of a dozen different nationalities. As many as 50 would seat themselves to a meal, the relish of which would be stimulated by the incorporation of such pre-prandial solvents as were still obtainable. Amongst those present would be many of the newspaper correspondents and newsreel men, who had been attracted to Nanking by the war and who later were to achieve fame in a wider field.\n\nBut the reviving confidence in the capital was rudely shaken when the news came in of the Chinese retreat from Shanghai in November, and especially when the Government instructed its various departments to transfer to other places further inland.\n\nThen there was such a coming and going in all directions of wretched persons seeking safety, but knowing not where to look for it, as to bring home to the onlooker, in a way which all the previous horrors of the bombings had failed to do, the ghastly side of the war. The inhabitants of Nanking had no illusions about the sort of treatment they might expect at the hands of the enemy.\n\nOn the Bund at Hsiakwan, as the river front outside the city was called, an accumulation of baggage, furniture, medical supplies, munitions and stores of war, piled up day after day, waiting for space on the British steamers, which were working at high pressure backwards and forwards between Nanking and Hankow. Fortunately the weather during the weeks following the Government's decision to move was wet and stormy and kept the Japanese bombing planes away. But it increased the difficulties of loading, and the Bund coolies and sampan men reaped a fortune. They were demanding as much as four dollars to carry a package across the Bund on to the steamer, and sampan owners, who normally would cheerfully accept a fare out to a ship for twenty cents, now demanded twenty dollars. It was beyond the strength of the government to control these racketeers, as it was beyond their strength at a later date to enforce impractical regulations for the control of prices.\n\nFor the foreigners the burning question was whether the Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212194, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "113\n\nthe walla-walla men are\n\nwould be an argument about the fare surely descended from the original Hongkong pirates and, that settled, a slow journey across the harbour, followed by a walk home. Such conditions are discouraging to social intercourse. They tend to break the community up into cliques; into the circle who live on the Peak, the crowd down in Victoria, and the mob over in Kowloon.\n\nHow deep-seated was the snobbery amongst the few could be seen at a later date, when the remnants of the British community were interned by the Japanese. Many of the women still thought themselves too superior to keep company with their sisters in misfortune, and continued to carry their noses in the air, while living under the most dismal conditions, crowded cheek by jowl seven and eight to a small room.\n\nTo avoid overheating during the Hongkong summer called for a special technique. The idea was never to move rapidly in any direction; a slow steady advance got you there. If the advance took you past the stately building erected by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, so much the better. It was air-conditioned. You could look in on your friends, who had the good fortune to rent offices there, and while passing the time of day your body refreshed itself in the cool dry atmosphere.\n\nOwing to the discomfort of movement and the geographic complexities, on leaving office at noon most people did not return home to lunch. They either went to the Club, where the cuisine, it is unreliably claimed, compared with that of the Shanghai Club, or to the Hongkong or Gloucester Hotels. These rival but contiguous establishments were a local institution. What Shepherd's Hotel was in Cairo fifty years ago, the Hongkong Hotel was in the late 1930s; a place where wanderers met. You seldom entered the hotel lobby without running into someone you had not seen for years. It might be an official of Imperial Airways who had just flown in from India, via Rangoon and Bangkok, or an American news reporter leaving by Pan-American clipper for Manila. Both hotels provided excellent fare. Some favoured the one, some the other. At the Gloucester the dining room was eight floors up on the roof, with a view over the harbour; in the Hongkong Hotel it was at ground level with a view of the \"Grips\", the arena where the cosmopolitan crowd foxtrotted to the music of a Filipino orchestra.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212250, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "THE OFFERING TO THE WHITE TIGER\n\nIN CANTONESE OPERA\n\nSAU Y. CHAN*\n\n169\n\nIntroduction\n\nSymbolically, the White Tiger is a mystic figure in Cantonese folk religion. Though it can also bring merits to people, it is often referred to as a fierce devil. Thus the ritual known as zae bak fu (Offering to the White Tiger) should be held from time to time so that the harm caused by the White Tiger could be minimized. It is performed in a variety of Cantonese folk religious practices and a comparatively more elaborate form of the ritual has been preserved in the tradition of Cantonese opera, where it is also called zuk bak fu (capturing the White Tiger), zae toi (offering to the performing stage), po toi (breaking or initiating the performing stage), da mau (beating the cat) and occasionally as tiu coi sen (dance of the Deity of Fortune) and tiu jyn tan (dance of the Jyn Tan deity). As it has often been criticized as a superstitious act in mainland China, troupes there have, according to some informants, ceased to perform this ritual in recent decades. Nowadays this operatic form of White Tiger ritual is mainly preserved by troupes performing in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.\n\nI\n\nThe Exorcistic Function of the Offering\n\nAccording to interviews with many Cantonese operatic employees, whenever a theatre, whether temporary or permanent, is built on a piece of land that has never been used for such a purpose, the performing stage is called a sen toi (new stage) and the White Tiger ritual has to be performed for the protection of members of the troupe and the community which hires the troupe. It is believed that a tiger turns white when it reaches the age of 500. It would then make use of people's mouths to harm other people. Before the ritual is done, if one calls the name of another person, or simply talks, the words will be made use of by the White Tiger and the one who responds will be harmed. In the past, disasters such as the flooding, collapse and\n\n* Music Department, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212253, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 195, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "172\n\nritual in her paper mentioned above. Her description is as follows.\n\n+\n\n*Indeed, actors may well be especially requested to carry out similar acts of exorcism on behalf of their clients, just like priests. In 1975 at Sai Kung, in Hong Kong's New Territories, a development comprising several modern blocks of shops and high-rise flats was declared open in an official ceremony, which included the (also symbolic but hardly magical) act of cutting a red, white and blue ribbon performed by a high-ranking member of the British administration. On the preceding evening the actors already engaged to perform operas in the town in connexion with a temple festival were asked to perform The White Tiger, and they did so in exactly the same manner as in the performance of the same ritual scene two weeks before. The sole difference was that the second performance was for the purpose of exorcising evil forces from the new buildings, which stood on recently reclaimed land where people had never lived before. In other words, the players were acting here as exorcists for the community, not at all for themselves: like priests.\" (Ward 1979:32)\n\nActors and Characters in the Offering Ritual\n\nIn Cantonese opera, the White Tiger ritual requires only two actors who play the Deity of Fortune and the White Tiger respectively. In Cantonese folk religion, there are five deities which are believed to bring fortune to people. The one portrayed in the White Tiger ritual is known as Jyn Tan (literally \"abstruse altar\") whose real name is Ziu Gung-ming and who is thus often called Ziu gung jyn sey27Ah (supreme commander Ziu). To distinguish him from the other deities of fortune, Jyn Tan is often referred to as the \"military\" Deity of Fortune.\n\nAccording to legends, Jyn Tan has a black face and black beard. He wears an iron helmet, rides on a black tiger and carries an iron staff and a number of other magic weapons. Besides bringing people fortune, Jyn Tan is believed to uphold justice and eliminate disasters.\n\nThe origin of the White Tiger ritual is still unclear though the\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212254, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 196, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "173\n\nThe legend of the Deity of Fortune is known. It is understandable that the deity is incorporated in the ritual as he has the power to eliminate disaster and bring fortune. In the modern performance of the ritual, the deity's magical weapons are represented by a wooden staff and a chain. Troupe members often call the deity hak min (black face).\n\nStage Setting and Preparation\n\nA wooden table and chair are placed in the middle back portion of the frontstage. Another wooden chair is put on its side at the edge of the stage left. Occasionally, additional wooden chairs are put in front of the accompanying musicians who sit at stage right.\n\nA better understanding of the ritual enables one to discover the different functions of these pieces of furniture. The wooden table and chair together symbolize a high mountain, and the chair facilitates the actor's climbing to the top. The other chair that is put on its side at the stage edge has a piece of raw pork hung from one of its legs, so as to facilitate the White Tiger's consumption of the pork. The chairs placed in front of the musicians function to protect them from the possible harm caused by the White Tiger. Ward has mentioned that a row of chairs had been seen at the edge of the stage to protect the audience (1979:31). However, the use of these chairs has not been noticed during the several White Tiger rituals observed by the present writer.\n\nThe accompaniment to the ritual is provided by three percussionists: the gong and cymbal players, and their leader who is responsible for the wood blocks and the zin gwu \"kök (battle drum). Such players usually set their instruments ready one to two hours before the ritual and then stay away from the stage until shortly before the time assigned to hold the ritual comes.\n\nAccording to several experienced actors, traditionally the White Tiger ritual should be held immediately before the evening's operatic items start, which is approximately 8 to 9 p.m. In modern Hong Kong, as many troupe owners find it extremely inconvenient to maintain the taboo, they prefer to hold the ritual in the afternoon, usually at around 3 p.m. on the day that the series of performances begin.\n\nWithin the whole course of preparatory work for the offering, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212255, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "174\n\nmost important part is to fix a piece of ritualistic red sash to the black hat which is to be worn by the Deity of Fortune. Often a pair of gem fu TE (golden flower), which are made of thin metallic foil and used for decorating a deity's shrine, is placed on both sides of the hat, and sometimes the pair of \"wings\" on the hat are turned upright to imitate the hat worn by the deity Zung Kwae who is well known for his exorcistic power. In either case, the hat's peculiar features illustrate that the one who wears it is a deity and not a mortal. Once the hat is ready, troupe members should hide themselves and follow the taboo in an absolute manner.\n\nAfter putting on the appropriate costume, the actor who plays the Deity of Fortune paints his face black with only some white spots, and puts on the mock black beard. Another actor who plays the White Tiger dresses in the tiger costume, and gets the mask but does not put it on until he has to enter the stage. The actors then quietly offer incense at the shrine of the deity Wa Gwong #, who is the major patron of the Cantonese operatic profession. Often incense, fruit and meat are also offered at the shrines of the other patron deities of the numbers of the troupe, which are also placed on the same altar alongside the shrine of Wa Gwong. When the chosen time is approaching, the two actors wait behind the Tiger Gate at stage right. One of the backstage workers hands over the wooden staff to the actor who plays the Deity of Fortune. A string of firecrackers has already been tied to the end of the staff. Holding a joss candle, the worker stands close to the Deity of Fortune and is ready to light the firecrackers when the time comes.\n\nThe Performance of the White Tiger Ritual\n\nThe complete White Tiger ritual is described below and the key episodes are highlighted.\n\n1. With the lighting of the firecrackers and the playing of the gong, cymbals, drum and woodblocks, the Deity of Fortune holds the wooden staff upright, enters the stage from stage right, runs straight across the stage, enters the backstage, runs through the corridor at backstage right behind the backdrop and immediately re-appears onstage.\n\n2. After making a posture, known as zat ga loeng soeng (扎架亮相)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212256, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 198, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "175\n\n3.\n\n4.\n\n(to make a posture and show one's face), the actor goes through a series of stylised stage movements known as tiu dai ga (literally \"to dance the grand posture\") which is often used in Cantonese opera at battle scenes when a general appears onstage.\n\n5.\n\nWith another series of gestures and stage movements in a style similar to mime, the Deity of Fortune goes indoors, falls asleep, wakes up and discovers that his tiger has gone. The Deity goes out and searches for the tiger but cannot find it. He then climbs up and stands on the top of the wooden table, symbolizing that the Deity is now on the top of a mountain and waits for the tiger to appear. One of the backstage workers often hides under the table to keep the structure steady and firm.\n\n6.\n\nThe White Tiger actor enters the stage from stage right. Sometimes an actor might choose to enter with his back turned towards the audience (if there are any) so that the White Tiger's magical power would not hurt them.\n\nThe White Tiger crawls towards the piece of pork, grabs it and puts it through the mouth of the tiger mask. To symbolize the consumption of the pork, the actor throws it beneath the edge of the stage.\n\nThe Deity of Fortune jumps down from the table and fights with the White Tiger. After some struggle, the Deity surmounts the tiger and sits on its back. A backstage worker then goes onstage and hands a chain to the Deity who then fits it to the tiger's mouth.\n\n7. After the capture of the White Tiger, the Deity of Fortune holds the ends of the chain in his left hand and raises the wooden staff upright with his right hand. In order not to harm the troupe members backstage, the two actors keep facing the audience. With a backstage worker pulling its tail, the White Tiger and Deity of Fortune step backward towards the Tiger Gate at stage left. Upon their arrival at the gate, one of the workers helps the two actors to remove the mask, hat and beard; another worker assists in the cleaning of the painted face with a thin pile of joss papers. Sometimes a towel is used instead. Interviews with some experienced actors reveal that the tradition prescribes that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212257, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "176\n\n8.\n\ntwo actors resume their normal human identity at the conclusion of the ritual before they can step into the backstage.\n\nAt this moment, troupe members who stay onstage cry out loudly to signal the removal of the taboo which prohibits the opening of mouths. Joss papers are then burned as offerings to the spirits and deities. The whole White Tiger ritual lasts approximately from about three to five minutes.\n\nConclusion\n\nAs pointed out by both Tanaka Issei and Barbara E. Ward, there is an inseparable relationship between Chinese opera and religious rituals. The Offering to the White Tiger aptly illustrates how the performing conventions of Chinese opera are incorporated into the staging of an exorcistic act. On the other hand, as many scholars believe that Chinese opera grew out of religious roots, we might also say that the former adopted the conventions of the latter for dramatic expression.\n\nWhat is discussed in the present article relates to the White Tiger ritual and describes only some of the taboos and religious practices which are preserved in the tradition of Cantonese opera. As the present writer has pointed out in his other articles, other taboos and religious practices require troupe members to pay respect to the local deities upon their arrival at the place where they are hired to perform. Troupe members should also offer incense to the shrines of the profession's patron deities backstage, and place joss sticks at the edge of the frontstage to appease the spirits, ghosts and deities which will then protect them from falling off the stage. On the second day of the performance series, before the evening's play starts, joss papers should be burnt, as an offering to troupe members who have died. Moreover, as in many other Chinese regional operatic genres, whenever a troupe first arrives at a performing hall, even if it does not contain a \"new stage,\" the principal comic role actor has to write the Chinese characters dai ger (big fortune) on the wooden or bamboo pillar closest to the Tiger Gate at stage right, with a brush and using a type of red pigment made from a combination of oil and cinnabar, before the other actors can start their make-up. Such a ritual is known as hoi ber (to open a brush'').\n\nA traditional taboo prescribes that the strokes in the radicle hau ...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212258, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "177\n\n(mouth) from the character get di (fortune) should not be completely joined, so that the \"mouth\" is an \"open\" one. In this way, the troupe members are freed from the curse of \"not being able to open the mouths\", which implies that the actors could not sing or speak, that the troupe would become unemployed, and that the members would have to suffer from starvation. In case the stage is a \"new\" one, the hoi bet ritual has to be carried out by the actor who is to play the Deity of Fortune.\n\nFrom these taboos and religious practices, one might easily deduce that Cantonese operatic employees are highly superstitious. However, without understanding the function behind these practices, such a judgement would be nothing more than a subjective evaluation.\n\nIn his Exorcising the Trouble Makers: Magic, Science and Culture (1983), the anthropologist Francis L.K. Hsu has pointed out that religion and superstition are indispensable in every culture, including those praised as “civilized” and others criticised as “primitive”, and that it is not always easy to draw a distinction between science and religion. According to Hsu, a community which believes in science would dress-up their religious beliefs and superstitious practices in the form of science, and similarly, a community which inclines towards religion and superstition would interpret its empirical and scientific experience in the form of religion (Hsu 1983:129).\n\nTraditionally, Cantonese operatic troupes are often hired to perform for festivals, birthdays of both ghosts and deities, and an elaborated Taoist ritual known as da ziu k (rite of purification). In fact, before permanent theatres became an additional context of Cantonese operatic performances in the late 19th century, for most Cantonese operatic troupe members, ritual performance had been their major source of employment. Even in modern Hong Kong, every year over two-thirds of the total productions are staged in a ritual context.\n\nIn the late Qing Dynasty and even up to the early 20th century, ritual performances were held in temporary theatres built with palm leaf mats, bamboo and wood poles. Modern ritual theatres replace mats with tin sheet. When a troupe is hired to perform a series of ritual plays, the temporary theatre becomes not only their performing venue but also their living quarters.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212309, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 251, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "By the 1970s, it was no longer such a competitive and profitable organisation and its operations were scaled down. A purpose-built factory was completed on Tsing Yi island in 1991.\n\nAlthough the Swire Group over five generations has always had its head office in England, it has interests throughout Asia and the South Pacific, as well as in North America and Australia. Its China Navigation Company began operations on the Yangtze River in 1872. In World War II, more than half of Swire's ships were lost. A dockyard (of which more later) was established in Hong Kong at the turn of the century.\n\nThe group, which adopts a relatively low profile, has about 28,000 employees in 1988, and is the second largest employer in Hong Kong after the Government. Its complement included, up to 1990, 78-year old Madame Ho Sau-King who had worked at Taikoo Sugar Limited since 1928.\n\nIn 1981 John Bremridge (later Sir John), Taipan of Swire's, became Government Financial Secretary for a term of five years. This was an unprecedented appointment as previous 'FSs' had been promoted through the ranks of the civil service. Like the son of the founder of Swire's, Sir John Bremridge writes and speaks to the point”.\n\nThe conglomeration of interests of this (still largely) family firm and private limited company includes an elite collection of Hong Kong enterprises. Swire's has a controlling interest in Cathay Pacific Airways, founded in 1948, as well as in HAECO aircraft maintenance company. Property is also big business and about 45 per cent of the group's net asset value is in bricks and mortar. Other interests include container terminals, technology, engineering, air catering, investment banking, travel and general trading. Sir Adrian and Sir John Swire have a family fortune estimated at HK$6.3 billion, and in 1989 Sir John was quoted by the Sunday Times Magazine as being Britain's 12th richest person, a position he held jointly with his brother.\n\nDodwell's\n\nW.R. Adamson and Company (later, Adamson Bell and Company), the forerunner of Dodwell's, was founded as a result of the efforts of a group of Cheshire weavers who needed to increase supplies of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212313, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 255, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "232\n\nCompany, was originally established in Shanghai after John Macgregor and Jack Caldbeck purchased the business of George Smith and Company. Macgregor had come East to seek his fortune after serving in the Royal Navy in the Crimean War. Caldbeck had been the P&O agent in Singapore. Unlike other firms, Caldbeck Macgregor specialised in wines and spirits. From its original base in Shanghai, which started in 1864, it opened branches along the China coast with outposts in Peking and Tientsin doing especially good trade.\n\nIn 1882 an office was established in London, and a branch opened in Hong Kong in 1889. The latter was started partly because of the popularity here of horse racing. Although employees in some firms, such as Dodwell's, had been discouraged from taking part in the sport, the partners of Caldbeck Macgregor were able to investigate the potential of various wines and spirits at race meetings. It soon became the best known firm in the liquor business in the Far East. Caldbeck Macgregor was much more of a family concern than most organisations until this control was lost in the late 1960s.\n\nHutchison's\n\nIn 1877 John Du Flon Hutchison, aged 22, came to Hong Kong to join Robert S. Walker and Company who were merchants in Gough Street. Known as Wo Kee in Chinese (和記), the firm opened for business about 1860. Probably in the 1880s he began trading on his own, as John D. Hutchison, and, in 1893, with one assistant named W.M. Watson, his company operated from Stanley Street. Hutchison died in Shanghai in 1920, although he had sold his firm in 1917 to T.E. Pearce.\n\nJohn Douglas Clague (much later Sir Douglas) had been captured by the Japanese in Hong Kong in 1941, but managed to escape from Sham Shui Po prisoner of war camp in 1942, and, with the help of Chinese partisans, Clague made his way over the hills into China. There he served with the British Army Aid Group.\n\nWith a brilliant war record behind him Colonel Clague became Taipan of Hutchison's in the late 1940s. It expanded rapidly taking over many other companies which had interests in a variety of fields. But the Group over-extended itself and ran into financial difficulties in the 1970s. As a result an Australian businessman who had lived in\n\nPage 255\n\nPage 256", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212353, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 295, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "272\n\nIn the fighting in Sham Chun, the two allied clans at all stages had the advantage, principally because of their larger cannon. This caused in total about thirty deaths, two-thirds from among the Cheung clan. Through the shelling of the village several women and children died. Furthermore, a man from another village which had nothing to do with the conflict also died. His only contact with the fighting was to have gone to the market to buy something. The actual market itself had originally been considered as neutral ground, since the whole district had to go there, until suddenly the Tsois sent their shots straight into it.\n\nOne day a so-called Fortune Teller in the new market was seized as a spy by the infuriated people, and thoroughly beaten. One of our Christians, who had previously learnt something of surgery from the Missionaries, functioned as a surgeon from the beginning of the fighting, and made good business from the many woundings by his understanding of the use of chloroform.\n\nAfter the fighting had continued for several more weeks, we saw the District Mandarin whose office was only about five hours walk away at last take steps to issue instructions to bring the case to an end. He sent an underling with a detachment of soldiers to Sham Chun to make peace. However, the warring parties refused to listen. He therefore took all his soldiers away with him, and the fighting continued fiercely.\n\nA few weeks later, the cannon-fire stopped. I asked the reason, and was told that the Military Mandarin Tin On-pong had arrived with his soldiers to clean the matter up. This news pleased me. It was this man who, about five years ago, cleared this whole district of robbers and other rabble, so leaving us here free from what the Chinese call \"great enemies of the people\". He was at one time a day-labourer in a village not far from here, and then joined up as a soldier. From then on, his resolution has carried him through every sort of different endeavour, and so, going up step by step, he is now the man before", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212388, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 330, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "307\n\nrecovering them and their stubborness in this belief undoubtedly saved the lives of 21 British seamen.\n\nH.J.W. CHETWYND-CHATWIN\n\nREPORT ON VISIT TO TAI HANG FIRE DRAGON DANCE, MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL 1992\n\nOn the 11th September, 1992, a party of Society members, family and children visited the Tai Hang Tsuen Fire Dragon Dance at the invitation of the Tai Hang Residents Welfare Association.*\n\nThe Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance started in 1880 when Tai Hang was a small Hakka village of farmers and fishermen on the waterfront of Causeway Bay.\n\nAccording to local legend, on a stormy night that year, just prior to the Mid-Autumn Festival, some villagers killed a serpent at a stone house in Sun Chun Street. They placed the body of the serpent in a bamboo cage, intending to hand it over to the local police station the next morning. However, by then the body had disappeared. A few days later a plague broke out in Tai Hang and over ten persons died.\n\nOne night a village elder in his sleep was told by Buddha (one version says that the message came through Kwun Yum, the Goddess of Mercy) to make a grass dragon and burn firecrackers and incense sticks during the Mid-Autumn Festival. This advice was followed and the sulphur in the firecrackers drove away the disease and the villagers were saved.\n\nIt then became customary to hold a fire dragon dance every year during the Mid-Autumn Festival in order to drive away infectious diseases and to bring good fortune. This custom has been followed every year since 1880, with the exception of the Japanese Occupation and during the 1967 disturbances. The arrangements are in the hands of the Tai Hang Residents Welfare Association, and the event is very much a community function which continues a long-standing village tradition in the heart of modern, urban Hong Kong.\n\n* See Plates 14-15.\n\nPage 330\n\nPage 331", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212480, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "14\n\nHong Kong. First, they had enough money to pay their own passage and start new businesses. Second, they had the inclination to engage in trade at a time when business was shifting from Canton to other places. The life stories of Cantonese merchants tell the origin of their emigration, how they struggled against the difficult environment and hardship in acquiring wealth. They gave details of their business careers in the wills to encourage their descendants to follow their examples in creating a successful life.\n\nCanton-Hong Kong-Macau Network\n\nO Kee Cheung, a Cantonese merchant who first came from Canton to Macau, accumulated business know-how and went to Madagascar for trade. Later he returned to Macau but took residence at Canton. He mentioned he was poor and suffered a lot of sorrow in the past and reminded his sons there was hardship and extreme difficulties in making a fortune. His business was the Yee Fung Hong in Annam and there was a family trust fund named the O Chin Sin Tong:\n\nI came to Macao at the age of 18 to learn business, and at the age of 20, I began visiting foreign countries for the purpose of trade. During the first few years, I neither gained nor lost much. Afterwards through the help of Mr. Lee Mang, I went to trade in Madacassar and other islands and was a little more successful. Then I returned to Macao, and afterwards lived at Canton, at which time I was successful in all trade transactions, and my family was considered wealthy. But learning in mind the dangers of the winds and seas and the troubles encountered during the adventures of my youth, my former poverty and sorrow still appear to be within my sight. Therefore with tasteless rice and coarse dress, and always striving to renounce worldly vices, I have passed several decades, as if they were but one day. I have thus set you an example, so that you may know the hardships attending upon the making of a fortune, and being afraid that I would not be able to hold fast to the same, I have always striven to be diligent and economical, and even then, I was afraid of losing it.\n\n16\n\nLeung Kau was a Zhongshan native. It had been said he went to California when mining for gold was the chief attraction for most people.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212483, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 37, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "17\n\nthe 550 specified wills, 67 of the testators were at the time absent from Hong Kong, being only 12.2%. Mostly they were in Canton and Macau and nearly all of them were in retirement or were there for medical reasons. 19 Table 2 shows Hong Kong merchants held properties, mainly landed properties, not only in Hong Kong, but also in Canton, Macau and Shanghai as well as other parts of China.\n\nTable 2\n\nProperties Held by Hong Kong Merchants in China, 1850-1906\n\n \n \n 1850-70\n 1871-80\n 1881-90\n 1891-1900\n 1901-1906\n \n \n Canton\n 3(4)\n 9(11)\n 7(8)\n 14(14)\n \n \n \n Macau\n 1\n 1(1)\n \n 5(?)\n \n \n \n Shanghai\n \n 1(1)\n \n \n \n \n \n Rest of China\n 1(2)\n \n \n [(?)\n \n \n \n Total\n 1\n في\n 3\n 9\n 10\n 20\n \n\nnote:( ) number of places where landed properties located Source: HKRS#144\n\nHong Kong-Canton-Shanghai Network\n\nAfter 1842, British commercial interests on the Chinese coast were dually extended from Canton to Hong Kong and Shanghai. The newly opened port in Shanghai was flocked to by Cantonese merchants, compradors and foreign employees with Western merchants.20 Though Shanghai was opened for trade in 1843, the real development of Shanghai began during the 1850s. Cantonese emigrants came to Shanghai with the hope of making a fortune from foreign trade, particularly in the 1850s when the Taiping Rebellion disrupted trade in South China. Cantonese merchants had early established a presence in Shanghai. The Cantonese guild was established as early as 1710. As a scholar said, Cantonese merchants were a more national rather than a regional type. After 1843, they mostly came from Zhongshan prefecture and the Hong Kong Macau area, a region within the Pearl River estuary. Shanghai and Hong Kong were cities of immigrants, the number of outsiders surpassed the natives. Statistics confirm this impression. In 1885 immigrants represented some 85 percent of Shanghai's population.\n\nThe first Shanghai taotai after the Opium War, Wu Jianzhang, was a Zhongshan native who came from the merchant family of Samqua of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212519, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "53\n\nJiang Fan (1761-1831) was one of the scholars from Yangzhou who followed Ruan Yuan all their lives. After losing his fortune and library in a drought that devastated Yangzhou 1785-86, he worked for a number of major officials on their personal staff, including Grand Secretary Wang Jie (1725-1805) and Ruan Yuan. At the recommendation of Ruan Yuan, who was then Director of Grain Transport, Jiang was appointed to the Lizheng Academy as Director in 1813. He followed Ruan Yuan to Canton as tutor to Ruan Fu (b. 1802), who, alone among Ruan Yuan's children, had entertained any pretension as a classical scholar. While at Canton, Jiang edited the Guangdong tongzhi 1819-1822 under Ruan Yuan's aegis. Ruan Yuan published Jiang's major work, Hanxue shicheng ji.\n\nJiao Xun (1763-1820) was another scholar from the Yangzhou area. He was considered to be a major force of the mid-Qing era in Classics, history, astronomy, mathematics, phonetics, etymology, and geography. He was a close personal friend of Ruan Yuan and worked as Ruan's personal secretary in the early days of Ruan Yuan's official career. A record of anti-piracy campaigns in Zhejiang 1799-1809 was compiled by Jiao and printed as Yingzhou shu ji. Jiao also worked on Chouren zhuan. He was recorded to have been paid 1,000 taels to compile the Yangzhou fu zhi [Local gazetteer of Yangzhou]. With this money, he was able to purchase land and build a house. His own works, mostly printed by Ruan Yuan, included Bei hu xiao zhi [Local history of Bei hu, a community north of Yangzhou], Li tang xue suan ji (Jiao Xun's mathematical studies), and Diao gu lou ji [Studies from Diao gu lou], comprising three major treatises on the Classics.\n\nHung Yixuan (1770-1815) was an example of those scholars whose personality and inclination had made it difficult for them to fit into the trials and tribulations of official life. One of three brothers all known for their intellectual achievements, which embraced astronomy, history, the Classics, and geography, Hung first came to the attention of Ruan Yuan in Hangzhou in 1796 or 1797. As Governor-General at Canton, Ruan Yuan rescued Hung from office by appointing him to his personal staff to work with Feng Dengfu on epigraphical notes they were compiling on Zhejiang.\n\nLing Tingkan (1757-1809) had made his home in Yangzhou, where he had become a close friend of Ruan Yuan. A jinshi of 1790, Ling had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212522, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "56 \n\n+35 \n\nMatters failed to run smoothly from the beginning. Duan's feeling about being flattered had been expressed in a letter. “I found it impossible to refuse Ruan Yuan's generous and tempting offer to edit the annotation notes to the Thirteen Classics. Of course I realized that this was to be an onerous task, therefore have asked for help.” The tone changed in another letter, dated three years from the outset of the project. \"I truly regret that for three years, my time has been spent on making other people's dowry.\"**\" The completed work was not printed until 1817 in Nanchang shortly before Ruan Yuan was transferred to Canton. The edition was full of errors.\n\nRuan Yuan's changing fortune and personalities of the leading scholars working on this project were the major reasons for the long delay in completion of this project. Ruan Yuan had had to concentrate on government affairs. From 1805-1807, mourning for his father, he was able to work on the Jiao kan ji. From 1809 to 1812, he was not in a position to sponsor any literary project. Another major reason for the long delay was the personality of Duan Yucai. In 1800 Duan was 65 years old, and 80 at the time of his death in 1815. During the interim, he was becoming increasingly difficult. He and Gu could not agree on fundamental issues, with most of the scholars siding with Gu. So, the project did not coalesce until after Duan's death. That the printing and binding of the work took little more than two years indicates that a great deal of the work had been done already before Duan's death, and that the human and financial resources were such that completion of the major work was only a matter of time.\n\nHow Ruan Yuan supported the scholars\n\nRuan Yuan supported the scholars around him in three major ways. He put close relatives and friends, such as his cousin Ruan Heng (d. 1856) and Jiao Xun, as well as those with the practical knowledge he needed in discharging government responsibilities on his personal staff, paid out of his own or administrative funds. Ruan Yuan made it possible for other scholars to obtain academic appointments and to work on literary projects. Meanwhile, each scholar was to pursue his own research and writing. In many cases, although not all, Ruan Yuan published their works.\n\nEighty scholars were on his direct payroll during his long career that lasted almost half a century through the reigns of three emperors.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212587, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "121\n\nbirthday and would have brought bad luck. Nor did he celebrate his birthday that year. Presents were returned with an explanation.\n\nThe third tsat (three times seven ceremony) fell on the 27th of the month. If a tsat falls on the 7th, 17th or 27th of the Chinese calendar this is propitious. Close relatives also attended the fourth tsat and there was a great deal of banter, such as, 'Hello Mummy, how are you!' in front of the altar in second daughter's home.\n\nThe most important of these weekly rites was the fifth tsat held at the Buddhist Hall where the dead person's ling paai (spirit tablet), complete with small photograph, was placed. The function was advanced by one day and 2.00 to 7.30 pm was selected by the fortune teller as a propitious time. (Buddhist and Taoist priests sometimes supplement incomes by telling fortunes). Conforming with Buddhist doctrine close relatives were not allowed to eat living things before the ceremony. They also bathed in water purified with pomolo leaves. With the old Chinese day divided into 12, two-hour periods, it starts at 11.00 pm. One could thus bathe any time after that. Sexual intercourse was still forbidden (齋戒沐浴).\n\nClose relatives wore the same white clothes and shoes as before, but the hemp surcoats had been burned after the funeral service. The same picture was placed on the altar and many mourners maintained the deceased looked stern when they arrived. Her appearance became cheerful as the service progressed. A cigarette was kept lit on the altar. There was food, such as cookies and oranges. It was an impressive spread so the dead woman could invite ancestors. The altar was surrounded by wreaths and paper offerings sent by friends. Many came to pay respects.\n\nOne ceremony was conducted by six nuns. A monk led the invocations. Some knew the long mantras by heart. At appropriate times the leader threw coins and flowers. Any mourner who caught one was considered lucky. The chanting Buddhist nuns were quite young with shaven heads. They wore green and the leader a red robe. For most of the 5½ hours, various ceremonies, some long, were conducted. Also, continuously, friends and relations painstakingly folded paper ‘gold bars'.\n\nA 'charade' was later acted out by close family members. The deceased person's new spirit shrine (one had previously been cremated)", "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": 212595, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "129\n\nWhen humans experience helplessness it is natural to turn to unseen powers for strength, hope and guidance. Typical Hong Kong funeral ritual paraphernalia, with many taboos, incorporate the trinity of the three Chinese religions: Buddhism (usually adulterated), Taoism and Confucianism - if indeed the last can be termed a religion. Buddhism is peaceful and gentle; Christianity is more aggressive; and Confucianism seldom considers the afterlife being more concerned with earthly subjects like filial piety. Folk religion and animism, with joss sticks placed at the feet of special rocks and trees in which spirits dwell, often play parts.\n\nInterrelationships of the above and hedging are important. If one doctrine does not succeed in 'brightening a person's soul another may.' If you live on a precipitous mountain and pass both a Catholic and a Buddhist shrine every day while driving down a steep, dangerous road you cannot afford not to make the sign of the cross and bow; just as many people carry lucky charms to prevent mishap.\n\nThe wish of the average Englishman is for a simple interment, unlike most Chinese whose funerary rites are more complicated. Mourners usually require advice from priests, staff at funeral homes and temples, fortune tellers and others. Reasons for doing something are sometimes obscure and mourners, after asking 'why', are often told, 'It's always done like this.' Most want to believe they are doing the right thing for their dead. This was obviously so in this case study.\n\nAlthough most Chinese funerals include supernatural beliefs and practices these are often related to basic values embracing rank, achievement and security. These are important to most people both in this world and the next. A funeral is also an expensive social event which can be noisy. In this study, a very average funeral in 1988 cost $50,000 and there were seven ceremonies, some short, some long. In addition, the family had to gather together to perform other duties. These were time-consuming.\n\nNevertheless such ritual has therapeutic effects for mourners. Burning a paper car and various 'necessities', together with other rituals, are indicators of serious intent.48 The family in surcoats of sacking symbolise relinquishing everything. Food, money, colour, symbolism and homonyms (Sz is the homophone for both 'four' and 'death') play prominent parts, not only in society as a whole but also at funerals.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212649, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "184\n\nand the Aurora University, the former French university, unknown to the members of the staff at the Department of Botany, where I have the pleasure and the good fortune to work. This excited their curiosity, they had never heard of a French Museum in Shanghai. That led Mr. Liu Zhong Ling, the organizer of this conference to invite me to give a talk on the History of the Heude Museum.\n\nThe following is a poor result of memory work and information plucked from a few available sources. Charles de Vol's book, Ferns and Fern Allies of East Central China, published by the Heude Museum in 1945 has been of great assistance in writing this paper.\n\nThe Zi-Ka-Wei (Xu Jia Hui) Museum\n\nThis Museum was situated at the S. W. of Shanghai, just on the border of the Old French Concession. It was established in 1868 by Pierre Heude SJ., the year of his arrival in China.\n\nP. Heude made extensive collections in the Kiangsu, Anhwei and Chekiang Provinces. Between 1868 and 1880, he organized 13 expeditions. Though he collected plant specimens, he was essentially a zoologist, interested in molluscs, reptiles, fishes, birds and mammals. From 1892 to 1902, he extended his field work to the Philippines, Indonesia (Java), French Indo-China (now, Vietnam), Siam (Thailand), Polynesia, Japan and other neighbouring countries.\n\nI remember possessing a large volume on Conchology of Freshwater Molluscs. The pages were filled with series of scientifically and artistically drawn specimens well marshalled all through the book, with full descriptions and notes. A page advertising his works I discovered at the back of volume VI book I of the Zikawei publications shows the astonishing achievement of that remarkable man. On two pages, some of his works are listed:\n\n5 tomes or large volumes each comprising 4 books, that is 20 books. A total of 1,100 pages, large format (in 4to) with 270 plates, some in colour (brush-painted). The content very impressive. (see below)\n\nRiver Conchology of the Kiangsu Province and Central China\n\nStudy on the Trionyx", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212652, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 206, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "187\n\nremember from hearsay, Dr. H. Belval had come to Shanghai and worked as Head of the Chemistry Department at the University of Aurora where he researched plant sugars. He was replaced at the Dept. of Chemistry by one of my colleagues, Dr. Georges Durr, a Marist.\n\nDr. Belval was also a keen botanist and as such he was Director of the Musee Heude. He was responsible for the transfer of the Museum to its new premises and was its Director from 1929 to 1931. During this time, he prepared the publication of Courtois' Collection Petite Flore des environs de Changhai et de Nanking (Little Flora of the Shanghai and Nanking areas). It has never been published.\n\nBelval was succeeded by Octave Piel S.J., an entomologist with an interest in Chinese Archaeology and Art.\n\nNow I come to my own connection with the Heude Museum, its activities and its staff.\n\nBr. Paul August F.M.S.\n\nWhen I arrived in Shanghai from Beijing in September 1935, I had the good fortune of being appointed at St. Joan of Arc's College, a bilingual school of English and French media. There, I met Paul August. This humble man was Assistant Headmaster and Bursar of this school, full-time teacher of English, Mathematics, French and Latin. In spite of that heavy assignment, he took time to accumulate an enormous amount of scientific data and personal observations: notes on plants and insects collected by himself, study on chemicals, geology, petrology, weather observations, etc. His notes fill six large books written in a perfect handwriting. He had provided the Heude Museum with thousands of specimens of insects and hundreds of plants carefully packed and fully annotated.\n\nSo, for 10 years, this was one of the men I was going to live with. We soon found common interests and I owe to him, not only the development of my scientific studies in Natural History but also the scientific discipline of mind and action which transcends that of an amateur.\n\nFor 10 years, we used to take long walks in the countryside that was Hungjiao, Lunghua, Jiangwan etc. in the 40s and 50s and come back with plants, insects and other specimens collected there. Then, at home,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212707, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 16, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "A JERSEY ADVENTURER IN CHINA GUN RUNNER, CUSTOMS OFFICER, AND BUSINESS ENTREPRENEUR \n\nAND GENERAL IN THE CHINESE IMPERIAL ARMY \n\n1842-1919* \n\nKEITH STEVENS \n\nPART ONE \n\nThis is the story of General William Mesny, Knight Ying of the Order of the Pa-t'u-lu, a man who lived an exciting life from the day he left home on the island of Jersey at the time of the Crimean War to sail the oceans until finally he settled in a turbulent China having served with two of the provincial armies of the Chinese Imperial forces as a mercenary or, in modern parlance, a foreign adviser. He became a general in the Imperial army before he was 30, suggesting that his services were greatly valued by the Chinese though at the price of being viewed by the western community in central China, and Shanghai in particular, as too pro-Chinese and probably very eccentric having ‘gone native'. The remaining 47 years of his life were spent, first travelling around China, after which he tried to make a fortune in Shanghai but, sadly, having failed, eked out his latter years in virtual obscurity. He put a brave face on his troubles during the last 25 or so years with the occasional glimpse of disappointment and despair showing through in his writings. Considering his lack of formal education his publications deserve respect even if he displayed the undoubted large chip on his shoulder due to 'them', both Chinese and westerners, not affording him the respect and esteem he felt his due, in view of what he considered to be his radical ideas for modernising China. We only know details of Mesny's life, especially his time with the Chinese army, from his own writing, and his serialised autobiographical essays in the journals he published in Shanghai, Mesny's Chinese Miscellany. \n\nThese journals contained not only short autobiographical essays but also a wealth of interesting but unconnected snippets about Chinese customs, Chinese military organisations, mineralogy, Chinese food, commercial notes, etc, though concealed within these essays are a number \n\n* This article is somewhat long for the Journal, but in view of the level of scholarship it has been left at more or less its original length & [Editor]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212710, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 19, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "4\n\noff with a whole pound, 'the foundation of his fortune' which induced him to go to sea as a sailor. He then sailed away, at the age of 12, and in the course of the next six years visited various parts of the world including Australia, Africa and the Americas before finally settling in China in 1860 during the last days of the Arrow War [better known perhaps as the Second Opium War].\n\nMesny arrived in China at the start of the era known to the Chinese as the 'post-unequal treaties', an extraordinary period of readjustment in Chinese thinking. He arrived in a China whose rulers were an alien dynasty, the non-Chinese Manchus from Manchuria whose dynasty, the Ch'ing, ruled China between 1644-1911. Mesny's era covered the gradual collapse of the dynasty and its fall, followed by the first years of the Republic.\n\nWilliam Mesny spent a total of 59 years in China during which time he first, for some thirteen years, led a life of high adventure and, later, one which he lived to the full but at the same time one which appears to have fluctuated between the verge of success and pathetic failure. As it stands the later years of Mesny's life, following his short military career, fall into four periods; first, trekking across China, second, his life in Shanghai whilst still hoping to make his fortune; third, his time there when that hope had all but disappeared and finally, his last days, apparently alone in Hankow. The story contains elements which can only be guessed by reading between the lines in his Miscellanies, sadly without the help of other written or oral records.\n\nI have attempted to provide a chronology of Mesny's life from the multitude of snippets and asides he provided in his Miscellanies. This will be found at Appendix B. The great majority of the research in the UK has been carried out by Dr R G Tiedemann of SOAS in the University of London to whom I am also greatly indebted for both his advice and comments, as I am too to Miss Lucie Mesny of St Lawrence in Jersey, for her memories and photographs. However, any errors are mine alone.\n\nApart from the autobiographical portions of the Miscellany we have to rely upon the tiny smattering of family memory still available, two obituaries from Shanghai English language newspapers and what little has been written about Mesny by others who knew him in China. It is unfortunate that other living descendants of William Mesny have fought", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212712, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 21, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "6\n\nduring his first journey into the interior from Hankow to begin his career with one of the new local armies of the Chinese Imperial forces. Potted biographies of Mesny have been little more than loosely connected accounts of the major incidents in his life and have presented a one-dimensional figure. Had he not been made a general in the Chinese Imperial Army with which he served for a mere six years, the other forty-five years of his life would probably have merited 300 words towards the foot of the obituaries page in a local paper. Also, without the four volumes of his Miscellany, which tend to be our sole source-material, virtually all record of his service with the Chinese army would have been lost.\n\nFor at least part of his life Mesny lived at one end of an extreme, as a westerner who dressed as a Chinese, lived in a Chinese home and absorbed Chinese ways semi-consciously. The other end of the extreme were the westerners who lived out their working lives in treaty ports moving from office to club to home, and making sure that they never had any contacts with the natives nor learnt a single word of their language. He seems to have been an engaging character, though pretentious and extravagant, whose fascinating life, although insignificant in the run of Chinese history, was no more exciting or unique than many other westerners who led equally exciting lives on the China coast during the same era, the difference being that remarkably few wrote about them and those who did were usually fairly staid travellers describing their journeys across the Chinese empire. Mesny went several stages further, writing notes and autobiographical essays. Many were self-serving memoirs, which he published in Shanghai in his own periodical, the four volumes of Mesny's Chinese Miscellanies [described in detail in Appendix A] consisting not only of events within China, especially ones he considered important insofar as they affected his personal life and activities but also, more importantly, colourful observations during the second half of the 19th century in China reflecting the atmosphere, the social and military structures of the lower echelons of Chinese officialdom, foreign fortune seekers during the earlier days of the Treaty Ports and also, to a certain extent, the social life of the middle strata of foreigners on the China coast. Although he did not fully appreciate it, his notes on the Chinese military forces at that time and in particular the day-to-day details of military operations within a Chinese provincial army are unique. Although certain colour emerges from the foreign news telegrams of the day reproduced in his later volumes, it is singularly disappointing that he wrote so little on the momentous changes occurring in China at the turn of the century.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212722, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Mesny's Personal Life\n\nPART TWO\n\nConsidering how detailed and verbose Mesny could be in his writings it is surprising how little we know about his personal life during the later years. A certain amount about his well-being and illnesses, his religion and his relationships with the female sex during his first fifteen to twenty years in China can be extracted from his autobiographical snippets but on the whole they add little but colour to the overall picture. He did however reveal relatively more to us about his financial situation but only because it had deteriorated and was obviously causing him great anxiety.\n\nMesny must have lived from hand to mouth for most of his later years. He had always had an eye for the big break and though at times he seemed to make himself a small fortune, though we never hear the details, he soon enough appears to have reverted to scraping by. He loved the adventure of travel and for some years managed to earn sufficient or at least obtain adequate sponsorship to visit all eighteen provinces of China. However, the day came when he could just dream. In 1896, at age of 54, he wrote that being strong and active though getting old, he would like to make an expedition to Lhasa [he called it Lassa]. He bemoaned the fact that he had not the necessary funds - but, he wrote, if he had had sufficient he would liked to have journeyed to Mukden [Shenyang] and Kirin, then via the Amur region, return via Urga [Ulan Bataar] or the K'un-lun and the Seven Lakes including Ch'ing-hai [Kokonor], Tengri Nor to Lhasa and Darjeeling [in India]. He felt capable of accomplishing the feat penetrating right through unknown Thibet [sic] to India and added the hopeful 'Wait and see.' He never made it.\n\nHe was forever trying to persuade Chinese officials to allow him to help them and China with his grandiose ideas. Presumably he was planning and hoping to earn commission from any scheme which took off though he repeated several times in his writings references to such schemes in which he was prepared to act on behalf of China for the good of the Chinese people without benefit to himself. But for one reason or another, and we rarely learn why, these failed to come to anything. In 1878 he had been asked by a French bank to contact a very senior Chinese official, Marquis Tso, to arrange a loan to build railways, etc. in China's Northwest. Mesny would have to pay his own travelling expenses crossing China by land but would receive a handsome commission if", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212745, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "39\n\nShe was his maternal cousin, and his parents were keen that he should return from China to marry her. He said that he had made many lame excuses—which his parents had interpreted to be that his business was going so well that he dare not leave it [his usual ebullient tendency to exaggerate doubtless led them to assume he was making a fortune, and his brother, John, was therefore persuaded by their parents to travel out to China to let Mesny return home to marry]. However, Mesny's business was not sufficiently adequate for him to consider marrying anyone, not even the girl in Hankow, despite the Hankow girl having money of her own, and in addition, Mesny did not feel ready to marry and did not do so. He tells us that the Hankow girl went down to Shanghai, where she married a young man ‘whose name was still [in 1899] a household word, though husband and wife had long since been absent from the scene of their former experience in matrimony and other matters.'\n\nDespite the view he held about marrying a girl from his own country, he married Chinese women, one immediately after the other. The local girl back in the Channel Islands, his cousin, Lydia, whom his parents wished him to marry, appears to have dropped out of the picture in the late 1860s or early 1870s, when he married his first Chinese woman, probably by Chinese rites first, followed by a western marriage at the Hankow Consulate some years later. He was still sending verses to Lydia in 1868 and, incidentally, writing a letter a month to his old father in Jersey.\n\nWe have little idea what happened to either his first or second wife. We know that the second was legally separated from him and had taken half his worldly wealth with her. Why did he move back to Hankow for his last years? He left Shanghai in 1914... the unanswered question is whether his wife's obtaining a legal separation led to his move from Shanghai to Hankow? Another oddity involved his only son, who moved from Hankow to Shanghai to work, in his early thirties, at about the same time as his father moved back to Hankow from Shanghai. Mesny's son-in-law was a British businessman who, at some stage, lived and worked in Ningpo, not too far from Shanghai, and yet Mesny moved in the other direction to Hankow, where he had acquired a menial job with a long-standing British firm until he died.\n\nWe do not know anything about his relationships with his son and daughter, particularly in later years. At the time of his death, his only son would have been 34 and probably married. His daughter, Marie,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212750, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "44\n\nacknowledging the initial concept having been his, or so he claimed.\n\n+\n\nHe has been described as 'an adventurer and an explorer, a plant collector and a Chinese general. He was certainly an adventurer though nowadays he would be referred to as a soldier of fortune, an adviser, an opportunist, and even a mercenary.\n\nThe question remains, how successful was he? Money certainly came his way at times though judging from his Will, he was not a particularly successful businessman. He certainly collected plants and sent them back to the British Consul in Canton and has one specimen, Jasminum Mesnyii, named after him. He bore the brevet rank of Lieutenant General in the Chinese Imperial army but to what extent this was a genuine rank rather than an honour and a courtesy rank, though fully earned during his military service, is hard to judge. Again, though accurately described as an explorer, he was in fact much more of a traveller in parts of China already settled by Chinese and visited earlier by other foreigners. The trek he made, as recorded by Captain Gill, from Ch’eng-tu in Szechuan province to Burma through what was then called lower Tibet has a different slant to what would have been Mesny's account. In Gill's Mesny is scarcely mentioned and he would appear to have been taken along by Gill as his interpreter. It would have been interesting to have read what Mesny would have, and indeed may have written about his journey of very nearly four months with Gill.\n\nHe saw himself as what nowadays would be called a go-between, a consultant, and in those days regarded, perhaps, as a fixer. Mesny had a few major bees in his bonnet the most barefaced of which was the value he put on the advice he constantly proffered to every senior Chinese official whose ear he could reach on how to modernise China. He had, for example, prepared a list of some nineteen items, suggestions presented to the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, and although Mesny assures us that Chang accepted the list there is no evidence that he did anything about it or if he did, that he even mentioned Mesny in any memorials to the throne. Mesny wrote indignantly at one point in his Miscellany about his list of suggestions to Chang having been ignored, or put into practice piecemeal and inexpertly, penny pinching and ineffectually without any reference whatsoever to Mesny.\n\nIn 1906 at the very end of his fourth and final volume of his Miscellany he prided himself on his advice with the words 'All those great industrial", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212753, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "47\n\n18\n\non the depth and interest of their writings. Some, like Archibald Colquhoun1 went into great detail describing the wealth of minerals, the scope for modernisation in communications and the economy, all subjects which Mesny too, at the same period if not earlier, had written about at length. Others like Mrs Scidmore2 list 'intrepid travellers to Szechuan3 and the far west,' with names like Richtofen, Pumpelly, Von Kreitner, Hosie, Baber, Blaikiston, Little, Gill, Hart, Parker, and Pratt, Mrs Little and Mrs Bishop, and Dr Morrison, but not one of these authors referred to Mesny whose travels and experiences outweigh most if not all of them. Was it because he was considered to have gone native or been more Chinese than ‘one of us\"? We shall never know but each time yet another book was published it must have been galling for Mesny to find only very rarely he had earned a mention. After his trip with Gill to Tibet and India in 1877 he was scarcely referred to in books on China; this together with his constant and repeated reference to his contacts with and closeness to Chinese friends and acquaintances, mostly in high places, suggests that he was ostracised or perhaps no more than ignored by the western social community in Chinese ports and in Shanghai in particular.\n\nDuring his later years when fortune seemed to elude him, when there was no caste lower than the impoverished European or American, a number of themes and points of view in Mesny's writings place him fairly firmly into a class and category of his time. A plague of self-importance swept late-Victorian Britain and spread through its colonies and dependencies. Mesny suffered a massive dose and never, as far as his Miscellany record, appears to have had his balloon pricked. He must have been seen by foreigners in Shanghai and, in particular by his fellow 'Old China Hands', during the latter years of the nineteenth century and the first decade of this as a vulgar, low-born upstart, too fond of his own ideas, a self-centred braggart and an opinionated man, but let it be stressed that he would not be alone in this category in Shanghai or for that matter in all the other major western communities in the Orient. His own notes reflect the disdain with which he was regarded by people like Sir Thomas Wade and Sir Robert Hart. His name dropping in many of his writings, mostly in his personal relationships with Chinese viceroys, provincial governors and commanders in chief, suggests that he probably also dropped names to the same extent in everyday conversation. However, he knew the importance of patronage, especially in China, as one can see from his obituary of Tso, and his description of the momentary meeting with a Manchu hereditary prince.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212754, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "48\n\nIn the end he must have been disappointed at his inability to make and keep a fortune and to have public recognition. He must have felt rejected by the world to which he would have liked to have belonged, an outcast having married a Chinese during an era when it was considered beneath one's dignity to do so, and then having to live with the 'stigma' for the rest of his life of having 'gone native'.\n\nAs with most westerners in China, ending up frustrated at being unable to bridge the gap between themselves and the Chinese, Mesny appears to have resigned himself in his later years to being a westerner who, though still claiming to understand and being able to communicate with them, was one of 'us' and not of 'them', despite the opinion of other Shanghai westerners to the contrary.\n\nLet it not be forgotten that he had fought his way up from poverty and a lack of education to being the writer, editor, and publisher of a magazine which appears to have held its own for several years in a community which would have been comparatively discriminating. Despite being self-educated, he appears to have entertained high hopes of achieving popular esteem through his 'academic' and other achievements. He attempted to write for the edification of others and produced his Miscellany which, though only marginally out of the ordinary, does have some value for its detail of the late Taiping era; the organisation of the Chinese Imperial Army of the day, in particular the provincial forces under Chinese rather than Manchu generals; his contacts with Chinese officialdom and his knowledge of obscure facts about China. Many of the latter, however, were culled from other western sources, and he appears not to have translated much, if anything, from Chinese material.\n\nMesny must have been a difficult man to live with. He was self-made, with a great pride in his achievements offset by his egotism, self-absorption, and his apparent need to denigrate others. He was dependent on his wits, and perhaps his charm, to improvise an alternative existence.\n\nHis obituary appeared in two separate Shanghai English language papers some ten days after his death. Both cover three columns, most of which are taken up with an autobiographical account of his life written shortly before his death. They provide additional biographical detail but fail to answer the many questions which naturally spring to mind.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212755, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "49\n\nDespite the feeling we have acquired simply from his own writings that he had many acquaintances and few friends, that he was neither a European nor a Chinese and was held at arms length by both, that he was God's gift to the girls, that he offered guidance and good advice with great foresight to the Chinese, and was either ignored or his ideas purloined by others, the obituaries, possibly following a policy of avoiding speaking ill of the dead, described him as ‘a great traveller, a great scholar, a soldier, an author and publisher. A cheery man who most people knew, who at 77 walked briskly to and from his office, beloved by many, although not rich in the world's goods he was always ready to help others, and was of a very cheerful disposition. He endured many shrewd blows of fortune but always came up smiling.'\n\nHe must have been regarded both in Shanghai and in Hankow as an eccentric and colourful old man. Everyone would know of him but to what extent he was accepted socially we shall probably never know unless, that is, someone's private correspondence in which he is mentioned comes to light.\n\nNOTES\n\nMason was a young British official in the Chinese Customs on the Yangtze who organised the shipment of arms to and became involved with Nien rebels. Mesny, who knew nothing of Mason's schemes and plot, found himself officially ostracised after being accused by Li Hung-chang of being a rebel leader.\n\nIt is strange that there appears to be no reference to the typhoon in the available Shanghai papers of the day. Also, in view of his complaints about people's refusal to face up to disaster by taking out insurance, why did he not have the Rink insured? Probably, considering his circumstances, he was unable to afford the premium.\n\nThe Tsar-li Hui has been variously described as a minor religious cult, in Shantung province in particular, or as survivors of the White Lotus Society, an anti-dynastic body since its foundation in the fourteenth century through to its final defeat in Shansi in 1815. A number of members then joined the Nien revolt, and here we have a link perhaps between Li Hung-chang's accusation that Mesny was a leader of a Nien rebels during the Mason case.\n\n$\n\nMesny's Chinese Miscellany: Volume 2 item 1431 page 362\n\nBat'uru: 'A kind of Manchu Distinguished Service Order [DSO]' Johnston RF Lion and Dragon in Northern China. Murray: London 1910\n\nWilliam Mesny always referred to himself as 'Knight Ying of the Pa-t'u-lu' BA\n\nThis decoration was intended to correspond to European Orders [sic].\n\nGarrett, Valery M Mandarin Squares. Oxford University Press. Hong Kong. 1990", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212763, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "57\n\ntaken advantage of, possibly due to the cost of reproduction in his Miscellany though more likely because he did not possess a camera during his travels.\n\n[2] Campaigning in Western China. Regrettably, despite a note in the Miscellany to the effect that he would be writing more, possibly the most interesting part, the second Kueichou campaign, he only completed the first campaign.\n\n[3] Mesny's Itinerary - from Canton to Kashgaria which was later renamed Mesny's Journeys through China (from Canton to Turkestan). This was never completed. Mesny wrote in the Miscellany that he had written an account of his journey from Canton through Kuangsi in 1879 for the London Daily News. \"This very influential and highly respectable journal did not consider my poor contribution sufficiently interesting to insert it in its widely read columns, so the useful information then written by me practically remained unpublished owing to my lack of funds until 1896 when I wrote up some of it in Mesny's Chinese Miscellany.\"\n\n[4] Varieties of Food in China [in which Mesny covers plain and exotic food and menus, eating etiquette, banquets and the production of foodstuffs such as tou-fu]\n\n[5] Progress in China [editorial essays explaining how China kept missing opportunities, and how it would have been different and better if his advice had been taken]\n\n[6] How I made my Fortune by an Old China Hand ['who is even now neither too old to row nor too heavy to ride']\n\n[7] Notes on Tibet; Mongolia; Kueichou and the Miao-tzu [and in several other places he again described Miao customs and tribal differences]; Yunnan and its Trade Routes; and Kuangsi and the West River", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212765, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "59\n\nprevail elsewhere, and some of the descriptions held good for the whole of China. But,' continued Mesny, 'China is a large Empire, and General Tcheng was too young when he left China for Europe to have seen much of his own country. He was no doubt much better acquainted with Parisian manners and customs than with many manners and customs which prevail in many parts of the Chinese Empire. Nevertheless, his book deserves to be read more than once, even by me, who have seen so much more of China and the Chinese than General Tcheng has so far. Had I the literary qualifications of the writer of Les Chinois, Peints par Eux-memes, I could write at least a dozen such books on China and the Chinese without exhausting the stock of information I have acquired during my forty-four years' residence in the country. I have been treated in some parts of China much the same as General Tcheng was treated in Paris,'\n\nThe Miscellany probably just about paid its way though from the occasional note of sadness though not despair which appears from time to time, Mesny must have continued more for the desire to make a living and perhaps also to keep his name before the public eye rather than to earn a fortune. It was by no means smooth going and at times he must have upset individuals and even groups such as the announcement he made in July 1899 that his Miscellany was being boycotted by the press, bankers, insurance and shipping agencies and by shopkeepers. He bemoaned the fact [Volume II, Issue 28: Sep 1896] that the loss on the first year's publication was over $2,000.\n\nSeveral times in the course of his Miscellanies Mesny repeats a disclosure of a titbit of news or political scandal to prove that he was first and that the North China Daily News and the Shanghai Mercury had simply copied his original scoop without attribution.\n\nA number of magazines were being published around this time on the China Coast such as The East of Asia Magazine, printed and published by the North China Herald Office in Shanghai, a quarterly illustrated consisting of essays on topical subjects such as Chinese customs and superstitions, gems of Chinese poetry, bits of Fukien travel, Ningpo under the T'ai-ping's, etc mostly written by reasonably well known people. It only ran for a couple of years. Another was Social Shanghai, a monthly glossy journal relating western social happenings mostly in Shanghai but in a few instances referring to the outports. It consisted of the usual society articles, including births, deaths and marriages, the races, and lengthy pieces about the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. This ran", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212796, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "90\n\nThree Bold Adventurers to fight alongside the Nien rebels. After being captured and carried to Chin-chiang in a cage, he was saved by two British artillery officers serving with the Taiping forces.\n\nThe third time was in Hankow when Mesny took Damström along with him as a heavy-weight. The incident occurred after Mesny 'arrested' the dishonest Chinese merchant who had swindled Dupuis. [These incidents are probably not in temporal order].\n\nDupuis, Jean\n\nA French merchant born ca. 1828, who arrived and lived in Hankow in about 1860. He built up a thriving trade in armaments. Fluent in Chinese, he introduced Mesny to the Szechuanese officials whose invitation to serve with the Szechuan Force changed his life. Mesny remarked that Dupuis was a distinguished explorer and 'conqueror of Tonkin.'\n\nGill, William J: born Bangalore 1843\n\nServed in India after being commissioned into the Royal Engineers. Inherited a fortune and indulged his passion for exploration. One of his travels was through north Szechuan province, where first he travelled alone and then later with Mesny to Burma. He wrote The River of Golden Sand in 1880, and after several other travels, in Tripoli and Afghanistan, he was murdered by Bedouins in 1882.\n\nGiquel, Prosper M. [1835-1886]\n\nA French naval officer who arrived in China during the Second China War. Formerly Commissioner of Imperial Maritime Customs at Ningpo and Hankow. He assisted the Sino-French 'Ever Triumphant Army' that fought alongside Tso Tsung-t'ang's force in Chekiang province to recapture Hangchow and Ningpo, and later commanded the force in operations that led to the recapture of Hangchow, for which he received high rank and honour from the Ch'ing government. His principal achievement was the construction and administration of the Foochow Arsenal in 1866, and dockyard with its fleet of warships. He was the only foreigner besides Gordon to receive the honour of the Yellow Riding Jacket.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212864, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "158\n\nchildren took Mme Hardoon's surname-Lo-the Eurasian children the surname Hardoon. Their ostentatious life-style was particularly noted. The Aili Garden, designed to be in the style of the Da Guan Yuan of the Dream of the Red Chamber, embraced a temple and a school. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, it was said that the Hardoons assumed the life style of the court by entertaining imperial concubines and employing eunuchs as retainers.\n\nActual facts known of the Hardoons are somewhat less flamboyant. Silas Hardoon was born in Baghdad. At the age of five, in 1851, his family moved to Bombay where his father worked for the Sassoons. In 1873 he moved to Shanghai to work for Sassoon as a clerk. His parsimonious living, administrative skills, and keen business sense soon enabled him to become a rich man himself. He engaged in opium sales and real estate speculation. Instead of buying expensive land in the British settlement, he bought land for himself and for the Sassoons in the External Roads area. And, when the settlement expanded, land value rose. It was said that he made as much as 500 million taels in one single transaction. Hardoon married a Chinese woman and had little to do with Jewish religious or social life in Shanghai, despite his significant gift to the construction of the Beth Aharon synagogue for the orthodox congregation Sheerith Israel. Before and during the Revolution of 1911, Hardoon and his wife harboured revolutionaries in the Aili Garden. Whether or how much they contributed towards the revolutionary coffers is unknown.\n\nSilas Hardoon died in 1931 and was buried in the Aili Garden. This final act of disregard of religious tenets again angered the Jewish community since the garden was not consecrated ground.\n\nThe Kadoories\n\nThe first woman to drive an automobile in Shanghai was Lady Kadoorie, wife of Sir Elly Kadoorie, an Iraqi Jew who made his fortune in real estate utilities in Shanghai. Kadoorie was a part of the Sassoon establishment until he went on his own. One of their sons, Lawrence,* was to become Lord Kadoorie, the first man from Hong Kong to sit in the House of Lords at Westminster. He has remained active in finance and industry in Hong Kong. Their other son, Horace, is known for his support for education of Jews all over Asia, including Israel. Horace likes to be active in all aspects of founding a school, from curriculum planning to staff hiring, in addition to fund raising. In Shanghai in 1939,\n\n* Since deceased [Editor]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212872, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "166\n\ndescendents experimenting with the locations in the light of family events over that time, since anything untoward would be attributed to bad siting of the urn.* If, however, good fortune smiled on the family, it might then be decided to prepare a formal, horseshoe grave on that site, or perhaps on another equally auspicious or even better location. The services of a geomancer were obligatory on such occasions as few families would possess a member with the necessary skills. Thus, by the time a new grave appeared on a hillside, there had been a great amount of prior thought and activity among the responsible persons in the family, as well as considerable expenditure. Sometimes, this included paying those villagers living in the vicinity of the grave, persons with customary rights of grazing, and somebody to cut the grass around the grave occasionally.\n\nSome Typical Grave Inscriptions\n\nThe following inscriptions on two old graves recorded from the Tsuen Wan District, with translations and comments, will indicate the care taken with burials, and the obvious importance attached to the process. The first is from a grave belonging to the Tang family of Kam Tin, New Territories. This inscription, dated 1853, has been chosen from among many others of the kind, because it exemplifies the strong family feeling that motivates descendents in regard to ancestral worship and their duties toward the living and the dead:\n\nAncestor Wing-shing, alias ...-yue, alias Shan-fung, was the second son of Ancestor Kwan-leung. He was born in Chien Lung ping-san year (1736) and died in Chia Ch'ing kap-shut year (1814). By his wife, who was from the Man family, he had one son, Ying-yuen, a kui-yan of 1789.\n\nAncestor Hin-sing, alias Kwing-yue, alias Kang-sham, was the only son of Ancestor Kwan-chak.\n\nThese two gentlemen were grandsons of Ancestor Kwok-yın.\n\n[Hin-sing] was born in Chien Lung mou-san year 1748, and died in Chia Ch'ing san-mei year 1811. By his wife, who came from the Liu family, he had two sons. One, Ying-..., who held fu kung-sang degree had a [second] wife from the Man family, by whom he had two", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212875, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 184, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "169\n\nfamily in the present generation and after:\n\nOur ancestors first came to live in Tsuen Wan about 235 years ago [1740]. Two brothers came from Chik Sek Market of Shi Kwan Tong sub-district (heung) of Hoi-fung County to Lai Chi Kok in Kowloon. Later, one brother moved to Sha Tsui (Yeung Uk Village), Tsuen Wan. Our founding ancestor was first buried on Tsing Yi Island, but because the authorities wished to develop that part of the island into a dockyard his remains were reburied in a formal grave at Fa Shan, Tsuen Wan. His wife was, and still is, buried at Hau Tei of Chai Wan Kok, Tsuen Wan. It has been found that both these ancestral graves have ever brought good fortune to our clansmen.”\n\nThis letter was sent in response to my enquiry about the settlement of the lineage in Tsuen Wan. I had not realized it would be a catalogue of information on founding ancestors and their graves, ending in the statement that the graves were responsible for the flourishing condition of the lineage today!\n\nAlarm and Indignation at Official Notices\n\nSometimes, there were more direct examples of the kind, originating in the posting of official notices on site. When old graves on Tai Mo Shan were being inspected and registered by our land staff in 1980, notices were posted which were guaranteed to upset their owners. One of the many affected parties, the Tang clan of Wang Toi Shan Village in the Pat Heung, sent in a very strongly worded letter to the Office:\n\nWe refer to your notice posted at the ancestral graves of our Tang clan at Sze Fong Shan, Tai Mo Shan summit, stating that the burials were in violation of public health regulations. Descendants of the clan called an urgent meeting at which it was resolved to make strong objections. The Tang clan are indigenous villagers of Wang Toi Shan in the Pat Heung, and have a history [of settlement there] which is older than the Hong Kong Government. The ancestral graves in question date back to more than a century ago, and were repaired in the 31st year of Kuang-hsu [1905], as shown by the tomb inscriptions. The prosperity of our clan is attributed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212877, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 186, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "A geomancer whom we have consulted in this matter has examined the position. He has advised that this year, when the grave is in the southern part of the cosmic cycle, lives will be cut short if the grave is harmed: and if land in front or behind the grave, or to its left or right, is disturbed it will be difficult to preserve the lives [of our clansmen] and people will certainly die. The whole clan will have to disperse.\n\nBecause of this, our entire clan's four branches, male and female, old and young, can have no peace and quiet in their lives. All are in a confused state and know not what to do. We cannot but object, we cannot stop or rest [in our best endeavours], and we have decided to inform you of our united and sincere opposition.\n\nWe invite you, knowing both government policies and the people's disposition, to cancel the order [to remove the grave] and to select another site for development. If this protection cannot be achieved, all descendants of the Wong clan's four branches will oppose [government] to the death, as in the spirit of the Anti-Japanese War [1937-45], and with tearful eyes and blood flowing, will fight to protect the founding ancestor's grave and keep it in its present position.\n\nFor as long as there is our ancestral grave, there will be descendants: but without the ancestral grave, there will be no living persons [in our clan]. 'When drinking water, think of its source' [Chinese proverb]. Thus we have to oppose the government in this matter. If there are any losses arising from the government's actions, it will carry the full responsibility.\n\nIf, however, it is possible to discuss and negotiate over the siting [of the development] and select another place, the government will have shown a benevolent heart, and acted with rectitude, loving the people as if it were its own sons. Then our founding ancestor will have [continued] good fortune and the clansmen will enjoy long lives; and the government will have calmed the people and done a meritorious deed.\n\n171", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213073, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "122\n\nshih. The latter has not been noted in any altars in southern Fukien province, nor in SE Asia, though it is almost certainly a local Fukienese cult. However, in one of the temples in Singapore containing the image of San P'ing Tsu-shih it was claimed that there was a trio of sworn blood brothers, San Tai Tsu-shih, San P'ing Tsu-shih and Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih. This group logically ties together the concept of a trio, with Ch'ing-shui being involved as a junior deity and with a black face.\n\nThe confusion arises presumably due to the similarity of the images. San Tai Tsu-shih is also depicted as a standard image of a monk, sitting cross-legged, wearing the five-leaf bodhisattva crown, but with a pink face. He is also depicted holding a fly whisk in his right hand and his left hand in a Buddhist mystical sign. Legend, as related in one of the temples, claims that the three generations, the father, grandfather and son, were fortune tellers of great renown who lived a thousand years ago in Ankur in Fukien, who cured the sick. In several successive years of desperate drought and famine, so the legend continues, they disposed of all their worldly wealth, giving it away to the poor and needy. Revered predominantly by emigrants from the Ankur region the triad is prayed to for a cure for all forms of sickness. They are also revered by local people who bear the same surname, Lin, with people referring to the old grandfather for advice on land purchase and before starting up a new business.\n\nThese three cult deities are revered separately and on their own altars in different temples both in the Amoy region and elsewhere, and are regarded as important cult units. Ostensibly the latter two, the deified Buddhist monks, would seem to be Buddhist deities; however, in practice all three cults are to be seen nowadays only in popular religion temples though never together. As with virtually all popular religion cults, they are not revered in isolation and stand on their own altars in temples beside altars bearing other deities of unconnected cults.\n\nNOTES\n\nOthers claim that it was the Lord of the North Star (Pei-tou Hsing-chun) who introduced this deity to mankind.\n\nThis is one of the instances when he appears to be being confused with Sun Ssu-miao.\n\nChang Sheng-che was identified in a rural temple in Chin-mei, on the mainland across the strait from Amoy island as the 'magician' Fa-chu Kung [qv]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213249, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "50\n\nKuhlmann usually known as Henry Kuhlmann. He soon took into partnership Richard Schonberger. His interest ceased in 1887 (DP 27 Jan. 1888). John Max Heinrich Meier, a former clerk of Radecker and Co., became a partner in Kruse and Co. in 1890 (DP 1 Jan. 1890). Mr. Kuhlmann died at Hamburg in September 1893. He was unmarried and aged about forty-five (CM 29 Sept. 1893).\n\nIn 1905 the company moved into new premises in the recently built Hotel Mansions Building at the corner of Chater Road and Pedder Street (DP 9 Aug. 1905). Carl Wilhelm Longuet had been a partner of the firm until his death in November 1910 at Blaneness, near Hamburg. He was a native of Lubeck and was aged forty-seven at the time of his death (HKT Supplement 19 Nov. 1910).\n\nThe partners at the time of liquidation were John Meier and P. Hall. The business was sold by the liquidators as enemy alien property in 1915 to a British firm, The Hong Kong Cigar Store (HKT 3 Feb. 1915).\n\nStorekeepers\n\nJurgens Claussen and Muller\n\nHenry Joachim Jurgens operated a haberdashery shop on Queen's Road in 1858. His wife and Mrs. Adonia Rickomartz ran a millinery department in connection with the shop (FC 14 May 1858). Mrs. Jurgens gave up her business interests in September 1859 (FC 15 Sept. 1859). Mr. Jurgens left Hong Kong in 1866 with the intention of settling in Hamburg, but he returned to Hong Kong in 1870 and re-established himself in premises lately occupied by Thomas Hunt and Co. at Pedder's Wharf (DP 7 Sept. 1870). Within a year he had moved to a store recently vacated by Lane, Crawford and Co. on Queen's Road (DP 23 July 1871), but soon he had relocated in Yokohama, Japan (DP 3 Apr. 1872). Again he was on the move and finally settled in Shanghai, where he died in 1897, aged seventy-two. His obituary states he arrived in China in 1856 and within the brief period of seven years he had made a fortune of $160,000, but out of boredom or financial reverses he came back to China seven years after he left (DP 20 July 1897).\n\nCharles Henry Claussen was an assistant in Mr. Jurgens's haberdashery from 1862 to 1865. He then entered a partnership with August Muller", "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": 213264, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "66\n\nBanks, Hongs and Government House\n\nMany old established western hongs have long come to terms with the 'breath of the dragon'. As one senior Standard Chartered Bank staff member phrased it (partly with tongue in cheek perhaps?): 'Some Europeans are more concerned about fung shui than the Chinese. Besides, paying attention to it is good for business.'\n\nThe British Standard Chartered is the oldest foreign bank in Hong Kong (its forerunner, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, was established in Hong Kong in 1859). Management was advised that for its new building, completed in 1990, one main door was not enough to 'catch all the good fortune and allow money to flow in'. An additional entrance, facing northeast, was included in the plan, 'to capture \"luck\" from Central District and from the harbour and business from the Hong Kong Banking Corporation next door'. The main entrance is very important. It is subjected to more foot traffic than any other part of a building. Its door should be well-hinged, upright and in scale with the building as a whole.\n\nSimilarly, the decor of Chartered Bank's interior includes a number of features synonymous with prosperity in Chinese culture. The stained-glass windows in the entrance hall portray a bus with registration number 28 (homonyms in Cantonese also meaning 'easy to prosper'). A red (a lucky colour) tram car has the number 88 (signifying 'doubly prosperous') and steps have been constructed in flights of eight. Lucky numbers are popular in Chinese communities around the world.\n\nSimilarly it is good if one's grave, or niche in a columbarium where one's ashes are deposited, has a fortuitous number. In Europe numbers carry different meanings. Seven (among Chinese, this number is often associated with how many dishes mourners partake of at a funeral wake) is sometimes considered lucky, while 13 is deemed unlucky. Consequently, a 13th floor is sometimes omitted in a building.\n\nAs is common in many commercial premises in Hong Kong, running water is good because water signifies money. While having a water feature may not mean much in a bank in York or New York, such beliefs do imply a great deal to many customers in Hong Kong. Yet, surprisingly, few appeared to have been too upset when the fountain at the 'Landmark', in Central District, was done away with.", "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": 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": 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": 213285, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "87\n\nGreen, or greenish-blue (linked to wood), stands for growth, youthfulness, freshness, posterity and tranquility. It is the colour of harmony. It is the colour of the dragon. Blue is an ambiguous colour. It can mean death. White (the glint of metal) is the colour of autumn and purity. It can also stand for mourning. Black (signifying water), the colour of winter and the north, is seen by some Chinese as lucky. But it is also the colour of bruising and therefore, frequently, not popular. It can be seen as the colour of calamity, guilt and evil.\n\nOften a fung shui consultant will select colours, when decorating a flat, not only bearing in mind the Five Elements, but also depending on its orientation (east, south, west, north and centre in the Chinese order). Colour can affect mood and disposition. In this respect, there is some similarity with the West where emphasis on colour, light and sound are important. As one Chinese friend told the author, who had engaged a fung shui expert to advise him about the colours for his new flat, \"The trouble is that a colour which is \"right\" for me, depending on my time and year of birth, I may not be happy living with.\"\n\nDecor should, however, be in harmony with the natural elements. Colours should be selected with equilibrium and striking a balance in mind. Yang colours are warm, solid, bright and masculine. Yin colours are feminine, cool and liquid. There is again similarity between East and West in that, while China links colours to the Five Elements, some western artists see people, depending on their characters, as colours. For example, a phlegmatic man can be viewed as 'grey'.\n\nMoving on from the Five Elements, structural proportions are obviously important, too, in both western and Chinese architecture. But the Chinese believe some dimensions actually encourage good fortune while other measurements are to be avoided. Nevertheless, the use of special formulae, and the ancient Lu Pan (the patron saint of builders) check (ruler), used in ancient times by carpenters and other craftsmen to encourage auspiciousness, has become almost a lost art. With this 'door ruler', as it is sometimes called, all main measurements of a structure should correlate with propitious numbers (Lung, 1991: 26). It is something like a module system in the West.\n\nThe Chinese believe also that a square is not a 'perfect square' and an 'idealised' or 'symbolised' square is 'more perfect'. In some ways, again,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213289, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "91\n\nThere are, for example, the Nine Stars and the 24 Mountains. The 24 Celestial Mansions, the 24 Fortnightly Climatic Periods, the 24 Characters, and the Five Elements are also represented. The compass, made from timber and coated with lacquer, not only tells direction, namely east, south, west, north and centre (the 'five' cardinal points), but it also shows the position of the sun at different periods of the year. To use the compass the base is placed parallel with the door, wall or other object to be oriented. The rings are then rotated so that things are lined up.\n\nAs a model of the universe, then, the loh poon helps its fung shui master interpret and predict, from the mystic Chinese characters, the client's future. This is done with the 'Eight Trigrams' forming the paat kwa (the eight-sided divining diagram as detailed in the I Ching) which is displayed on the inner section of the compass (Sung, 1934; and Sung, 1935). With the 'Eight Trigrams' two parallel continuous lines represent the 'Great Male Principle', and two parallel broken lines represent the 'Great Female Principle', and so on.\n\nThe ancient book, the I Ching, is regarded as almost sacred in some quarters and dates back to about 2800 BC, although the oldest extant commentaries were probably written closer to 1300 BC (Markert, 1986). The I Ching deals with prognostication, fortune telling and philosophy, with sets of symbols and different ways of combining these symbols so that they form titular statements. Much is written in poetic language which is difficult for the lay Chinese to understand.\n\nThese Trigrams mentioned above, made up of broken and unbroken lines in various relationships, are loathed by evil spirits in the same way that Holy Water, blessed by a Christian Priest, will fight evil.\n\nIn fact in China's Fujian Province, to the North-east of Hong Kong, large circular, communal dwellings have one ring of houses encircling another ring (Huang, 1994, 11). A whole complex, as large as an Olympic stadium, houses hundreds of families. Such structures are said to be earthquake proof and designed to provide natural temperature control. Each complex is shaped similar to the baat kwa, as outlined above.\n\nAs previously stated Chinese culture is woven around the 'Five Elements' in various ways (Needham, 1956, 243). The Five are employed, in fung shui, after consulting both the lunar and solar calendars (which", "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": 213293, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 115, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "'Doctrine of the cosmic breath', and outlines of nature involving landscapes, mountains and watercourses, and their likeness to animals either mythical or real, are employed. Of the Fukien and the Kiangsi Schools, the latter is the more popular in Hong Kong, although the two have tended to merge and overlap like Buddhism and Taoism over the past century.\n\nIn addition to the two main schools of fung shui, as already demonstrated, there are variations in methods used by different practitioners. Although they may know things about 'unseen forces' and the supernatural that they did not learn through schooling, because fung shui is complex, alternative interpretations by different masters are by no means uncommon. One frequently finds that a master's personality plays an important part. Many masters do not share the same views or give identical advice. They have been likened to blind men feeling the same water buffalo and getting different impressions. One touches its head, another its tail and so on. On account of such factors, Chinese geomancy has been described as rather 'hit and miss'. Certainly, it is 'by no means an exact science'. But science can be a dead end anyway to an imaginative soul.\n\nSick Building Syndrome\n\nA great deal has been written in recent years about the effects of chemical emission of building materials on occupants. Dr Bill Wolverton, a member of the United States 'Plants for Clean Air Council' (Plants that cure ..1992), maintains that research proves plants in buildings can filter out harmful chemicals. Microbes in the roots detoxify and help purify air. Naturally, some plants are better at this than others, and only fresh plants can provide energy and power to attract positive forces. Azaleas or plants with sharp, pointed leaves are to be avoided because of the 'dagger effect', Chinese believe.\n\nWhen the leaves of fortune plants wither and turn yellow, however, they should be replaced, or yellow edges should be trimmed. Most Chinese will tell you that with fresh bamboo, this is permissible. Others insist you should not cut plants after they have grown, while in your possession, as you are 'cutting away your own wealth'. Incidentally, some Chinese believe, with plants and flowers symbolising growth, life and nature, and with colours linked to the Five Elements, it is natural to place them in green or blue vases.", "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": 213296, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 118, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "98\n\nBritain since she moved there with her parents as a child, had this to say. 'If my mother bought a house in England she would certainly consider fung shui, I would consider it too, but not in such detail.'\n\nUndoubtedly, more interest is shown by Westerners in things Chinese today, compared to, say, a generation or so ago. Treatment like acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines have slowly become accepted by some members of the western medical profession. Likewise, fung shui is gaining Caucasian proponents. It is believed the layout of Amsterdam's waterways, the beauty of Lucerne, and the textbook layout of Paris all conform to good fung shui principles. Patrick Wong, a fung shui consultant practising in Britain, maintains that London attracts favourable water spirits from the Thames (Forsyth, 1994:64). These signify good fortune. The river's direction and flow, and the fact that it meanders and has many tributaries, are all conducive to prosperity (Walters, 1988:23). Kwok Man Ho, one of Europe's foremost fung shui masters, was called upon to advise on the design of some of the more recent projects in London's Docklands.\n\nIn addition to Chinese fung shui masters practising in the West there are also proponents like Derek Walters, a Briton who dons Chinese ceremonial robes and claims to have advised a number of British celebrities. Walters flies regularly to Hong Kong, where he learned his craft, to consult with other experts. 'We have nothing similar to fung shui in the West so it fills a vacuum,' he maintains.\n\nIn this technological age many people are searching for a 'fourth dimension'. They also want something that stirs the will. A number are looking for a simple, direct way of escaping the boredom and narrowness of everydayness. While some find their escape in mediaeval history, art or music, others find it in fortune telling or fung shui.\n\nA group of Chinese, after discussions among themselves in Holland, came to the conclusion that, among the Hong Kong, Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese living in the Netherlands, 70 to 80 per cent believe in fung shui, at least to some degree. For instance, many believe the number of windows in a dwelling should exceed the number of doors. If they do not, the inhabitants will hang up some kind of talisman to counteract possible evil influences. Similarly, gods which are popular in Hong Kong, like To Tei Kung, Kwan Ti and Kwoon Yam (觀音) are common among Chinese in the Netherlands.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213300, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "102\n\nas a barrier to progress, by, for example, not allowing a person to carry out a certain operation on a certain day.\n\nThe Hong Kong (British) Government has certainly not ridden roughshod over Chinese culture and it has given tacit approval to fung shui by paying sizeable sums as compensation when the 'dragon's vein' has been endangered by public works. Few other colonial governments would probably have been as considerate. Also, remedial structural measures have been taken to the residence of the British Governor to bring it into line with fung shui beliefs. Many western business houses take fung shui into consideration. Their managements maintain the investment is well worth it. Staff worries are allayed. It is good for business.\n\nAlthough some is undoubtedly superstition, nevertheless much fung shui is common-sense and practical, taking into account natural rhythms that form part of man's lifestyle. It is, it has been suggested, up to everyone to treat fung shui with an open mind and to decide what he or she is able to accept. 'Staples' include symbolism, coins, crystal, mirrors, lights and wind-chimes. Fortune plants, with their non-calcified, non-woody stems, serve a useful purpose in purifying the atmosphere. Colours are linked not only to one's year of birth but also to the Five Elements.\n\nEvery building has its own metabolism. One purpose is to channel chi to all rooms so as to improve the bond with, and the energy and performance of, the occupants. Westerners believe they are able and have the right to control nature. The Chinese view is more akin to living in balance with nature and taking a holistic approach. This outlook helps bring about harmony and peace in the home or workplace. And, as society becomes more affluent, so the Chinese have more money to lavish on things like fung shui. Also, with the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China and the resulting uncertainty, more people are likely to appeal to the supernatural, and to visit fortune-tellers and engage fung shui masters, to try to find solutions to their worries and problems.\n\nIt has been argued nonetheless, not without reason, that geomancy can be rather 'hit and miss', more resembling an art than a science tested by experiments and research. It has also been argued that fung shui can be 'self-reinforcing'. This means that whatever is forecast is likely to come true partly because it is often explained in such vague terms. The fact that a forecast may not come to pass for years is accepted. As a result, much", "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": 213306, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "108\n\nAppendix B\n\nIn reply to the question, 'Do you believe in fung shui?' a variety of young Chinese, in their teens or twenties, replied to the author as follows.\n\n'I believe some of it.'\n\n'If there is reason behind it, like if it is to do with the trees or the mountains, then I believe.'\n\n'Not really.'\n\n'Yes, I accept fung shui. The custom will not die out.'\n\n'Yes, we young Chinese talk about fung shui. I half believe it. There must be something in it. The practice will not die out.'\n\n'No, young Chinese do not discuss it much. I do not believe in it. Mother is careful at home that things are not moved. I could not care less. Fung shui will die out.'\n\n'My parents only bother about fung shui when we buy a new house or move office.'\n\n'I believe the more practical side; not the superstitious side.'\n\n'Some of it: the practical part.'\n\n'To a certain extent.'\n\n'No, I'm a Christian, we are not supposed to believe in fung shui.'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'I believe some of it.'\n\n'No, I don't believe'\n\nA Chinese teenager brought up in North America replied: 'Fung shui? What's that? No, I don't believe in fortune telling and that sort of thing.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213313, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "David, Sarah, \"True Meaning of Life is Made Crystal Clear\". Hong Kong Standard, 20 September, 1994\n\nForsyth, Tim, 'London's Feng Shui Guru', Asia Inc, January, 1994\n\n'Guarding the Bank Across Two Generations\n\n115\n\nthe Long, Loyal Vigil of \"Stephen\"\n\nand \"Sutt\"', Hong Kong Bank News, December 1985\n\nHuang, Cary, 'Benefactor Highlights a Unique Heritage', Hong Kong Standard, 27 September 1994\n\nIggulden, Tom, “Blue-Chip Firms are Lining Up for Fung Shui', Eastern Express, 27-28 May 1995\n\nJasper, Chris, \"Bound by Birth. Does a Faith in Fortune-telling condemn you to fulfil its deadly predictions? Window, Hong Kong, June 1995\n\n'Feng Shui, Winds of Change Ancient Chinese Practice Catches on in the UK', Window, Hong Kong, February 10, 1995.\n\nKahn, Greenstreet, 'Fungshui', Extra Finlay, Hong Kong Standard, 11 October, 1985\n\nKonelus, Tura, 'Feng Shui Gets a Grip in the West', Sunday Standard, 21 April 1991\n\nLeung, Yummy, 'Village to Showcase Lifestyle of Hakkas', South China Morning Post, 1 April, 1986\n\n'The Lions Return Home', Hong Kong Bank News, June 1985\n\nMaitland, Derek, 'Fung Shui', The Asia Magazine, 1 May 1977\n\nMalone, Andrew, 'Top Firms Prosper with Ancient Chinese Force', The Sunday Times, England, 21 May 1995\n\n'A Million to Bury Village Ghosts', Hong Kong Standard, 23 March, 1990\n\nPhillips, David P, Todd L. Ruth and Lisa M. Wagner, 'Psychology and Survival', The Lancet, England, vol 342, November 6, 1993\n\n'Plants that Cure \"Sick Building Syndrome\"', Hong Kong Standard, 13 December, 1992\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213333, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "137\n\nKowloon Walled City, February 1989 and After\n\nThe Kowloon City tour was again very different. Some background is required. Excluded from the New Territories' lease in 1898, but in de facto British occupation since 1900, the \"Walled City\" had always presented problems for the Hong Kong Government, arising largely from its contentious legal status. No longer \"walled\" - its rectangular wall had been demolished by the Japanese during their wartime military occupation of the Colony - the enclave had soon after become a tightly-packed warren of unauthorized buildings without water supply, roads, or sewerage. In the 1970s - again without proper authorization - most of its four and five-storey structures had been replaced with high-rise buildings of twelve and fifteen storeys, greatly worsening its already unsatisfactory condition. The \"Walled City\" was notorious for drug-trafficking and other illegal or criminal activities. Most European residents of the Colony, and probably many middle-class Hong Kong Chinese too, kept well clear, and few of them had any real idea what it was like.\n\n22\n\nAfter signature of the Sino-British Joint Agreement in 1984, and with the agreement of the Mainland Chinese authorities, the Hong Kong Government had undertaken to remove, compensate, and re-house its population, and to demolish the buildings and replace them with a public park within the same boundaries. Here was a chance to show our members this rather infamous place that few had seen, and at the same time - as on the Chai Wan visit a few years before - let them know what was being done by the Government. By good fortune, one of my friends and former colleagues from the District Office, Tsuen Wan, was the officer in charge of the complicated negotiations with the City's business people and domestic residents, and he was very willing to make arrangements for a Royal Asiatic Society visit.\n\nIn the end, the tour's extreme popularity with our members entailed three separate visits, each attended by well over 100 persons. On each visit, after a general briefing, the government officers who acted as our guides - they included two young police women inspectors - talked to us about their work as they led small groups through the twisting, narrow, and confusing thoroughfares to meet our own RAS tour speakers at a few places en route where points of interest were explained. In my case, I had stationed myself in the courtyard of the former military yamen (government office) whose pre-1898 buildings had survived many fires as well as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213391, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 213, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "201\n\nForsyth, Sidney A, An American Missionary Community in China 1895-1905, Cambridge (Mass), Harvard University Press, 1971\n\nFortune, Robert, Five Year's Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China, London John Murray, 1844 (Shanghai Reprint University Press)\n\nTwo Visits to the Tea Countries of China and the British Tea Plantations in the Himalaya, London John Murray, 1853\n\nFox, Helen, ed and trans, Abbe David's Diary, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1949\n\nFranck, Harry Alverson, Wandering in Northern China. New York and London The Century Company, 1923\n\n— Roving Through Southern China, New York and London The Century Company, 1925\n\nFranek, Rachel (Harta), I Married a Vagabond the Story of Family of the Wandering Vagabond, New York Appleton-Century 1939.\n\nFritz, Chester, China Journey, Seattle Washington University Press, 1981\n\nGallagher, Louis J ST, trans, The Journals of Matthew Ricci 1583-1610, New York Random House, 1953\n\nGamewell, M N, The Gateway to China Pictures of Shanghai New York Fleming H Revell Company, 1916 (Taipei: Reprint Cheng-wen Publishing)\n\nGarman, Schuyler New Fight on Hua and Gabet. Their Expulsion From Lhasa in 1846. Pacific Eastern Quarterly | 148-63 (1942)\n\nGardner, James. In and Out of Chungking Changteh - Wenchow - Chanchow. Missionary Life, Experience and Adventure During the First of Three Periods of Residence in China, Sydney 1947\n\nGaron, Shirley S. The Chamber of Commerce and the YMCA in Mark Elvin and G William Skinner, eds. The Chinese City Between Two Worlds, Stanford Stanford University Press. 1974 213-238\n\nGaunt Mary Elizabeth Bakewell (b. 1872). A Woman in China, London, Lane, 1914\n\nGeil, William Edgar. A Yankee on the Yangtze, New York Eaton and Mains, 1904 (Copy at Yale published by Methuen in London 1926)\n\nGeneral Description of Shanghae and Its Environs Shanghai The Mission Press, 1850\n\nGoes, Bento de, The Travels of Benedict Goez, a Portuguese Jesuit from Lahore in the Mogul's Empire to China, in 1602. in Pinkerton, John, ed, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels London 1808-14:577-587)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213466, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "29\n\nof the blood but sons who have left the family to support themselves are disqualified from any inheritance. Daughters of the deceased likewise have no right to any inheritance but the deceased's brothers receive a share. On the dissolution of the estate the boat and engine are first offered for sale within the family. It might be that one of the heirs wishes to sell out his share and to build or purchase a vessel for independent operation. In any case the value of the property in the estate is realised and then the debts of the family are counted. If the value of the property in the estate is insufficient to offset the debts, one of the heirs may take the whole estate and thereby assume sole responsibility for all the debts of the family. Alternatively, the heirs on sharing the assets will share the debts equally also and will then each inform the creditors what share of the debt he has assumed responsibility to pay.\n\nMarriage 17\n\nMost sea-dwellers follow the old Chinese custom in marriage and very few reach marital state through love-affairs or register their marriages in the modern manner. A match-maker is employed to introduce the relatives of the boy and the girl and then upon the agreement of the respective parents the boy sends a gift to the girl as a symbol of their engagement. Then a temple or fortune-teller is consulted regarding the fixing of the wedding date. Ten days before that day the boy gives the girl's parents notice and on the day before the wedding he sends her a large present of cakes, wine, roasted pigs and other delicacies. That night the girl's parents give a dinner party. The following morning the boy sends one of his close female relatives with the match-maker in a sampan to a given rendezvous and they escort the bride to the bridegroom's boat. On her arrival the bride first salutes the bridegroom's ancestors. In the afternoon a dinner party is given by the bridegroom's parents usually on a \"Ko Tong” (=restaurant boat). If the bride's family is wealthy a dowry may be given.\n\nSince they are accustomed to adopt a son if their wife has no issue, few sea-dwellers keep concubines. However if a concubine is kept in the traditional manner then she must receive the approval of the first wife and thereafter any sons by the concubine are treated in the same manner as sons by the first wife.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213502, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "66\n\nto a site in central waterfront for a naval yard and a central location in the area adjoining Queen's Road and next to the Victoria Barracks for naval stores.\n\nSai Ying Pun was very much deserted when R. Fortune revisited Hong Kong in December 1845. He said:\n\n\"Before leaving China, I had occasion to visit this spot of ground, the grave of many a brave soldier. A fine road leading round the island ...passed through the place where they had been buried. Many of their coffins were exposed to vulgar gaze, and the bones of the poor fellows lay scattered about on the public highway. (Fortune 1845, P. 22. footnote)\n\nThe malaria fever of 1843 has a great effect on the urban development of Sai Ying Pun. If the military authorities did not move out in those early years due to the fever, many areas in Sai Ying Pun at present might still be in the hands of the military and excluded from the sprawl of urban structures.\n\nSai Ying Pun During the Late Nineteenth Century\n\nSai Ying Pun was only a tiny settlement in the 1850s. According to the Government Gazette of 1 April 1854, Sai Ying Pun was classified as a small village with some isolated squatter huts in those years. It had only 83 people (64 adults and 19 children) in 1853. The general occupations of the inhabitants were said to be fishing, trade and agriculture. However Sai Ying Pun experienced a rapid growth rate. For example, in 1854 the population rose rapidly to a total of 266 people (248 adults and 18 children), a 220% growth over the previous year.\n\nIn 1860 together with Staunton Street and Tai Ping Shan Street, Sai Ying Pun was laid out. In 1866 under the Victoria Registration Ordinance, Sai Ying Pun became part of or one of the districts of the city of Victoria. The most interesting feature of the layout plan of Sai Ying Pun is that the road pattern in the First, Second, Third and High Street areas had been planned! (Talbot, 1971, P. 59)\n\nThough the road pattern had been influenced by the presence of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213509, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "REFERENCES\n\n73\n\nChadwick O) (1882)\n\nReport on the Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong, London\n\nEitel, E.\n\n(1895)\n\nEurope in China\n\nFortune, R (1847)\n\nThree Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China. London\n\nJanet, UHLG (1931-5)\n\nOld Hong Kong, Hong Kong\n\nLethbridge, C.H. ed. (1948)\n\nCentenary History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong\n\nLo, Hsiang Lin et al (1963)\n\nHong Kong and its External Communication before 1842, the History of Hong Kong prior to the British Arrival, Hong Kong\n\nLowson, J.A. (1895).\n\nMedical Report on the Epidemic of Bubonic Plague at Hong Kong in 1894. Hong Kong\n\nSayer, G.R. (1937)\n\nHong Kong Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age, London\n\nSimpson, W.J. (1903)\n\nReport on the Causes and Continuance of Plague in Hong Kong and Suggestions as to Remedial Measures, Hong Kong\n\nTalbot, I.E.D. (1971)\n\n'An Outline of the Urban Development of Hong Kong Island During the Nineteenth Century' in Dwyer, D.J. (ed.) The Changing Face of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, P47-62\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213581, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "147\n\nincense or joss sticks. According to Lo (1959, quoted in Iu, 1983), these trees were introduced into Guangdong Province from Vietnam in the Tang dynasty (619-907 AD) and were planted in large numbers in the New Territories during the Sung dynasty (960-1279 AD). In the late Ming period, the county of Tung-kuan was renowned throughout China for the quality of its incense. Until 1572, Tung-kuan county included the area subsequently forming the county of Hsin-an (including the present day New Territories) (Chan, 1989). In the Kuang-tung hsin-yu (Ch’u, 1974), it is noted that many people in Tung-kuan made their fortune from Kuan-heung (meaning incense from Tung-kuan) which was so popular that the annual sales values amounted to tens of thousands of taels. Incense trees were very suitable for the decomposed granite soils of the area and were particularly grown in the area of Shatin and the lower part of Lam Tsuen valley, whose name means \"forest village\", and around Tung Chung and Sha Lo Wan on Lantau. Interestingly, Schofield (1983) referring to the fine fung shui wood at Sha Lo Wan adds “In a suitable light, ancient log slides can be seen running straight down the steepest hills on this stretch of coast\", although whether these have anything to do with the incense trade may never be known.\n\nThe successful cultivation of the incense tree depended on three conditions, the suitability of the soil, adoption of proper methods of cultivation and the mastering of tapping and cutting methods for the collection of resin, which had a medicinal use. The general name of the varieties of incense produced in Tung Kwun, Po On districts, which included Hong Kong and the New Territories in those times, was \"Kuan-heung\" (Iu, 1983).\n\nThe logs were collected at Tsim Sha Tsui from where it was shipped by small boats to Shek Pai Wan near present day Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island, where it was re-shipped onto Chinese seagoing junks to Canton, SE Asia and as far away as Arabia.\n\nIt has been suggested that the cultivation of and trade in incense trees gave rise to the name of Hong Kong (meaning incense harbour). \"Little Hong Kong, or Heung-kong-wai, is said to have been so-called on account of the quantity of Pak-miu-heung-shu then growing there, the wood of these white-wood fragrant trees is called \"Nga-heung\" (i.e. fragrant wood white as a tooth), is odoriferous when burnt, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213728, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "52\n\nOccupation\n\nTable 19\n\nOccupations of Males. 1911\n\nNorthern District Southern District*\n\n \n Agricultural occupations\n 14630\n 64.3%\n 3138\n 28.4%\n \n \n Fishermen\n 1851\n 8.1%\n 1580\n 14.3%\n \n \n Seamen and sailors.\n 296\n 1.3%\n 180\n 1.6%\n \n \n Ferry boats and messengers\n 31\n \n \n 0.3%\n \n \n Foodstuff sellers\n 832\n 3.7%\n 745\n 6.8%\n \n \n (See Table 20)\n \n \n \n \n \n \n Masons and stonecutters etc\n 376\n 1.7%\n 766\n 6.9%\n \n \n Carpenters\n 122\n 0.5%\n 322\n 2.9%\n \n \n Boat builders, etc.\n 479\n 2.1%\n 199\n 1.8%\n \n \n Brick makers\n 14\n 0.1%\n \n \n \n \n Tailors and cloth sellers\n 176\n 0.8%\n 119\n 1.1%\n \n \n Blacksmiths, workers in tin and brass\n 138\n 0.6%\n 222\n 2.0%\n \n \n Shopkeepers and assistants\n 1151\n 5.1%\n 621\n 5.6%\n \n \n Silversmiths and jewellers\n 24\n 0.1%\n 49\n 0.4%\n \n \n Foreign goods dealers\n 4\n 0.0%\n 20\n 0.2%\n \n \n Booksellers and paper dealers\n 30\n 0.3%\n \n \n \n \n Pawnbrokers\n 4\n 0.0%\n \n \n \n \n Doctors and druggists\n 104\n 0.5%\n 173\n 1.6%\n \n \n Opium sellers\n 23\n 0.1%\n \n \n \n \n Coolies and general labourers\n 246\n 1.1%\n 1446\n 13.1%\n \n \n Pottery and glass dealers\n 15\n 0.1%\n 6\n 0.1%\n \n \n Basketry and rattan dealers\n 28\n 0.1%\n 35\n 0.3%\n \n \n Priests, monks, and fortune\n 41\n 0.2%\n 11\n 0.1%\n \n \n tellers\n \n \n \n \n \n \n Mechanics, watch sellers, etc.\n 9\n 0.0%\n 67\n 0.6%\n \n \n Shoe makers\n 7\n 0.0%\n 34\n 0.3%\n \n \n Beggars\n 6\n 0.0%\n \n \n \n \n Musicians and artists\n 1\n 0.0%\n 7\n 0.1%\n \n \n Cooks\n 98\n 0.4%\n 55\n 0.5%\n \n \n Domestic servants\n 18\n 0.1%\n 4\n 0.0%\n \n \n Sanitary workers\n \n \n \n \n \n \n Restaurant keepers\n \n \n 27\n 0.2%\n \n \n Barbers\n \n \n 116\n 1.1%\n \n \n Coal dealers\n 4\n 0.0%\n 43\n 0.4%\n \n \n L\n 97\n 0.4%\n 63\n 0.6%\n \n \n Surveyors\n \n \n 56\n 0.5%\n \n \n Government service\n 58\n 0.3%\n 45\n 0.4%\n \n \n Students\n 1729\n 7.6%\n 771\n 7.0%\n \n \n Teachers\n 169\n 0.7%\n \n \n \n \n Others\n \n \n 74\n 0.7%\n \n \n TOTAL\n 22770\n 100%\n 11036\n 100%\n \n\n* Includes New Kowloon", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213730, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "54\n\nTable 22\n\nOccupations of Males. Northern District. 1921\n\n \n Occupation\n No. of Males\n \n \n \n Agricultural occupations.\n 25306\n 78.8%\n \n \n Fishing\n 3268\n 9.4%\n \n \n Masons and allied trades\n 378\n 1.1%\n \n \n Lime burners and dealers.\n 20\n 0.1%\n \n \n Buck/tile makers\n 93\n 0.3%\n \n \n Oil pressers and dealers\n 104\n 0.3%\n \n \n Boat builders\n 42\n 0.1%\n \n \n Carpenters and allied trades\n 249\n 0.7%\n \n \n Blacksmiths/other metal-workers.\n 56\n 0.2%\n \n \n Jewellers\n 52\n 0.1%\n \n \n Basketry and rattan makers and dealers\n 41\n 0.1%\n \n \n Other artisans &\n 55\n 0.2%\n \n \n Weavers\n \n 0.0%\n \n \n Sail makers\n 10\n 0.0%\n \n \n Other textile workers.\n 7\n 0.0%\n \n \n Tailors, cobblers and allied trades\n 325\n 0.9%\n \n \n Dealers in foodstuffs (See Table 22)\n 952\n 2.7%\n \n \n Dealers in wine\n 58\n 0.2%\n \n \n Builders.\n 55\n 0.2%\n \n \n Fuel dealers\n 40\n 0.1%\n \n \n Land transport workers (rail and road)\n 119\n 0.3%\n \n \n Boatmen (See Table 24)\n 371\n 1.1%\n \n \n Sailors on foreign ships and steam launches\n 841\n 2.4%\n \n \n Dockyard workers\n 20\n 0.1%\n \n \n Tobacco dealers\n 25\n 0.1%\n \n \n Doctors, dentists and medicine dealers\n 124\n 0.4%\n \n \n Opium sellers\n 4\n 0.0%\n \n \n Pawnbrokers\n 5\n 0.0%\n \n \n Other shop workers#\n 392\n 1.1%\n \n \n Hawkers, coolies, general labourers\n 886\n 2.6%\n \n \n Government service\n 63\n 0.2%\n \n \n Interpreters\n 1\n 0.0%\n \n \n Teachers\n 192\n 0.6%\n \n \n Vets, lawyers, artists\n 3\n 0.0%\n \n \n Actors, musicians\n 8\n 0.0%\n \n \n Religious, fortune tellers, geomancers, temple keepers\n 114\n 0.3%\n \n \n Domestic servants\n 23\n 0.1%\n \n \n Barbers\n 88\n 0.3%\n \n \n Cooks\n 266\n 0.8%\n \n \n Restaurant, teahouse, guesthouse workers\n 42\n 0.1%\n \n \n Laundrymen\n 2\n 0.0%\n \n \n Watchmen and miscellaneous\n 31\n 0.1%\n \n \n Total\n 34753\n 100%\n \n\n* Includes engineers, motor car repairers, scissors grinders, paper makers\n\n* Some masons and allied trades were in the building trade as well\n\n# Includes cork dealers, paper dealers, joss stick makers and dealers, umbrella makers, straw coat makers, various brokers, money changers, buyers, clerks, salesmen, shop assistants, shop accountants, shop masters, weighers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213731, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "55\n\nThe differences between Northern and Southern District do not stand out too clearly in the 1911 tables since the Southern District figures there include New Kowloon, and exclude the boat people. Nonetheless, Southern District has 16.2% of recorded males working on boats as against 9.3% in Northern District in 1911, and higher percentages in all categories of shopkeeper and artisan. The more urban and coastal character of the islands can be seen, if dimly.\n\nIn 1921, however, there is an \"Occupations\" table specifically for the Southern District Floating Population. This is reorganised below, as Table 23. If this Table is read with the Southern District figures in Tables 19 and 20, a fuller picture of Southern District life can be had. The floating population table in the census, as for the land people, provides an occupation for 4,129 males as against a total recorded male population of 4,137, and so enters people under more than one occupation category, and must be read with care. The details of absolute numbers, therefore, cannot be relied upon.\n\nTable 23\n\nOccupations of the Floating Population, Southern District, 1921\n\n \n Occupation\n Males\n Females\n \n \n Agricultural occupations\n 2\n 0.0%\n \n \n Fisher(wo)men\n 3174\n 76.9%\n \n \n Net weaving\n 0\n 0.0%\n \n \n \n 896\n 59.9%\n \n \n Rope making\n 2\n 0.0%\n \n \n \n 57\n 3.8%\n \n \n Sailcloth (hemp) weaving\n 4\n 0.3%\n \n \n Seamstresses\n \n 33\n 2.2%\n \n \n Carpenters and allied trades\n 9\n 0.2%\n —\n \n \n Boatmen (see Table 24)\n 755\n 18.3%\n 430\n 28.7%\n \n \n Fishmongers\n 31\n 0.8%\n 11\n 0.7%\n \n \n Other shopkeepers\n 14\n 0.3%\n 1\n 0.1%\n \n \n Coolies, hawkers, general labourers\n 68\n 1.6%\n 9\n 0.6%\n \n \n Religious occupations, fortune tellers\n 4\n 0.1%\n 1\n 0.1%\n \n \n Barbers, hairdressers\n 1\n 0.0%\n \n \n \n \n Cooks\n 5\n 0.1%\n 11\n 0.7%\n \n \n Domestic servants\n \n \n 16\n 1.1%\n \n \n Washerwomen\n \n \n 13\n 0.9%\n \n \n Teashop workers\n 4\n 0.1%\n \n \n \n \n Seamen/cooks on ocean-going vessels and steam launches\n 59\n 1.4%\n 14\n 0.9%\n \n \n TOTAL\n 4129\n 100%\n 1496\n 100%\n \n\n11 Includes \"coxswains\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213735, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "Table 25\n\nOccupations of Women, Northern District 1911 and 1921, and Southern District 1911.\n\n| Occupation | Northern District: 1911 | Northern District: 1921 | Southern District: 1911* |\n\n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n\n| Agricultural occupations | 13982 97.2% | 8792 71.4% | 1820 80.2% |\n\n| Fisherwomen | 75 0.5% | 546 4.4% | 25 1.1% |\n\n| Masons and allied trades | 2 0.0% | 55 0.4% | - |\n\n| Carpenters | 2 0.0% | 6 0.0% | - |\n\n| Foodstuff sellers |(See Table 26) | 21 0.1% | 61 0.4% | 20 0.9% |\n\n| Embroiderers | | | |\n\n| Seamstresses etc | 36 0.2% | 1669 13.5% | 28 1.2% |\n\n| Silversmiths and jewellers | 2 - | 1 0.0% | - |\n\n| Shopkeepers and assistants | 15 0.1%# | 7 0.3% | - |\n\n| Grass-cutters, charcoal burners, and other fuels | 130 0.9% | 245 2.0% | 13 0.6% |\n\n| Weavers and allied trades | 48 0.4% | - | - |\n\n| Shoemakers | 2 0.0% | 12 0.5% | - |\n\n| Doctors and druggists | 2 0.0% | 31 0.2% | - |\n\n| Coolies and general labourers | 50 0.3% | 21 0.1% | 253 11.1% |\n\n| Hawkers | 97 0.7% | - | - |\n\n| Basketry and rattan | 2 0.0% | 3 0.0% | 2 0.1% |\n\n| Joss stick dealers | 2 0.0% | - | - |\n\n| Nuns, fortune tellers. temple keepers | 18 0.1% | 107 0.8% | - |\n\n| Marriage brokers | - | - | - |\n\n| Midwife | 4 0.0% | - | - |\n\n| Rent collectors | 6 0.0% | - | - |\n\n| Domestic servants | 12 0.1% | 159 1.3% | 13 0.6% |\n\n| Mui tsai | - | 119 1.0% | - |\n\n| Washerwomen | 77 0.2% | 1 0.0% | - |\n\n| Cooks | - | 141 1.1% | 13 0.6% |\n\n| Restaurant and teahouse keepers | 3 0.0% | 3 0.0% | - |\n\n| Boarding house keepers | 3 0.0% | - | - |\n\n| Rope spinners | 4 0.2% | - | - |\n\n| Netmakers | 3 0.0% | 4 0.2% | - |\n\n| Hairdressers | - | 3 0.1% | - |\n\n| Boatmen⚫ | - | 97 0.7% | 3 0.1% |\n\n| Government service | 3 0.0% | - | - |\n\n| Prostitutes | 11 0.5% | - | - |\n\n| Beggars | 1 0.1% | - | - |\n\n| Students | 33 0.2% | 21 0.9% | - |\n\n| Teachers | 6 0.0% | - | - |\n\n| TOTAL | 14386 100% | 12320 100% | 2270 100% |\n\n*Includes New Kowloon\n\n# Includes 1 blacksmith, 1 paper dealer, 1 shop accountant, and 12 shop assistants (See Table 24)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213737, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "60\n\nCensus does enumerate as being in full-time employment must be treated as being in actual fact working independently, except for those enumerated as agricultural labourers. The 404 women so enumerated in Northern District represent 2.5% of the total of 16,271 women aged between 15 and 45 in Northern District in 1911. Clearly, there were a substantial minority of women who were in full-time independent employment outside the home in 1911. From the 1911 statistics, many were working at the lower end of the employment market, as coolies and general labourers, or hawkers, but there were enough women operating shops (possibly in many cases as widows taking over the family shop after their husband's death) to make it clear that shops operated by women were by no means rare, as, indeed, oral evidence would lead us to expect. The 1911 female masons, carpenters, general shopkeepers, doctors, basketry dealers, joss-stick dealers, and restaurant keepers are all in this category.\n\nThe 1911 statistics do note, but clearly under-represent, the specifically female occupations (embroiderers, seamstresses, nuns, and prostitutes), plus the fuel sellers which oral evidence strongly suggests was another more or less exclusively female occupation. The 1911 statistics also suggest that beancurd selling, in 1911 as now, was essentially a female occupation. The presence of prostitutes only in Southern District confirms the oral evidence that, while there were no prostitutes in Tai Po or Yuen Long, there were in Kowloon City and Cheung Chau. Midwives and marriage brokers were also purely women's work, but mostly were part-time jobs undertaken ad hoc by housewives, and so only two strays out of the many dozens who worked in these areas appear in the statistics. The 1911 statistics, however, seriously under-record women working in these trades. In 1921, in Northern District, far more women are recorded as working in them than in 1911 (thus, 61 female foodstuff sellers are recorded in 1921 as against 21 in 1911; 1669 seamstresses as against 36; 48 weavers as against 0; 118 coolies/hawkers as against 50; 107 nuns, fortune tellers, temple keepers etc as against 18, and so on). The 1921 Northern District statistics for female occupations, therefore, are much fuller, and so probably closer to the actual position, even if under-recording is still likely.\n\nThe 1911 statistics draw a distinction which is probably real, between \"Tailors\" or \"Dress\" (male: Northern and Southern Districts", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213839, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 191, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "164\n\nin Tai O, following the practice of the Houwang Temple in Kowloon City, Tung Chung sets the date on the 15th of the eighth lunar month. As explained by local villagers, people in a farming community such as Tung Chung, in contrast to the fishing community of Tai O, are busy with farm work until mid-autumn. Setting the date for festival celebration in the slack season guarantees mass participation and enjoyment to the full,52\n\nDuring this festival of four days and five nights, representatives of Tung Chung's villages present the best sacrificial offerings to their local principal temple. All inhabitants from the area participate in the mass worship of their patron god. It is the climax of religious and social activities of the year as operas, Ch'iang-p'ao (rocket-snatching) contests, and other forms of entertainment are incorporated in the god's birthday observance. For the performance of the opera show, a bamboo stage is built in the open area in front of the main entrance of the Houwang Temple. On two sides of the stage, many stalls are set up in rows selling food, oblations, religious souvenirs, and even toys. Among these booths are some for the \"rocket associations\" which are formed mainly by competing villages and organizations in the names of 'ang, to vie with one another in the capture of lucky rockets. These rockets are considered relics of the temple god, or representations of the deity, which will bring good fortune and glory to the winning units. They must be returned to the temple with a thanksgiving observance on the god's birthday in the following year.\n\nBefore World War II, according to the natives, the \"rocket-snatching\" contest was held on the 18th of the eighth lunar month during which rockets were shot into the air by officers in charge of temple management. Representative members of the rocket associations, usually young men assembled in the square in front of the temple, would then scramble for the numbered wooden tablets inside the rockets just fired. Whoever got hold of the tablets could purchase the rocket numbered accordingly.\n\nAfter the War, owing to population increase, fighting over the possession of the rockets became a serious problem. In 1949, to reduce the chances of violent conflict, some rural areas decided that participants would draw lots for the rockets. In Tung Chung in recent years,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213911, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 263, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "239\n\nSUPPLICATING THE DEITIES\n\nIN MAINLAND CHINA'S TEMPLES\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nIt was interesting to note that in recently rebuilt or refurbished Buddhist and Taoist temples in Shanghai city there was no evidence of fortune sticks and blocks or of any equipment such as sand tables used for spirit communication. Temple keepers when questioned about it were quite clear. It was forbidden as superstition [mi-hsin]. In retrospect I have now noted a similar absence of spirit communication paraphernalia on altars on photographs taken in other cities and even in the countryside which I had overlooked during my visits.\n\nIt would appear that devotees in mainland China are permitted to offer incense and oil for the ever-burning lamp, and in some areas they also can burn charm papers before the images of the deities after which they can, orally, though virtually silently, put their pleas and offer prayers to the deity. However, in Shanghai at least, they were not, under any circumstances, able to obtain the immediate response which is the practice in Taiwan, Hong Kong, SE Asia and formerly, in China itself. They have to wait for their wishes to be responded to positively, or otherwise, by the deity. One of the temple keepers added that, as he understood it, 'this was the foreign method of worship'.\n\nIt must be added that outside mainland China possibly the prime reason why many devotees ever visit a temple is to obtain an immediate assurance and response to a question or problem which is worrying them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213933, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 3, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "From the Hon. Editor\n\nVol. 36, 1996\n\nAddendum\n\nConcerning the Note on page 239 of Vol. 36, SUPPLICATING THE DEITIES IN MAINLAND CHINA'S TEMPLES, by Keith Stevens, the author has asked that the following paragraph be added at the end:\n\nDespite what I had observed in Shanghai and elsewhere in Mainland China, in March 1998 I came across devotees using oracle sticks in two temples in Hunan province to seek advice from deities. One was in the main temple at the base of the Taoist Holy Mountain, Heng Shan; the other was in a large popular religion temple some ten miles south of Changsha on the banks of the Xiang Jiang, the major river flowing through the area. In both places temple staff sat behind a counter, with the devotees collecting the bamboo tubes from them and then rattling the sticks before the image of the main deity until one of the sticks rose up, thereby providing the 'lucky' number for the devotee who then collected the usual small printed slip bearing the same number and the relevant destiny or fortune.\n\nii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214005, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "40\n\narmy against the Prince of Han, and this time he gained a victory, but the practical results of it were of little service for the Liao came to the rescue and the Sung troops once more had to retreat. T'ai Tsu died a short time later at the age of 50 and was succeeded by his brother who ruled as Sung T'ai Tsung.\n\nIn 980, following the policy of his brother, T'ai Tsung made extensive preparations for the subjugation of the Prince of Han and a great Sung army under the command of the veteran P'an Jen-mei set out. The Prince of Han in great alarm sent messengers to the Liao Khitans begging them to hasten once more to his assistance, which they were well pleased to do. This time, however, the Khitans were defeated and the Northern Han capital at Taiyuan eventually capitulated and became a mere district city. Over-confidence then led the Sung to invade Khitan territory where they were badly defeated.\n\nThe hero of our story, Yang Yeh had been one of the captains of the Prince of Han, but after his surrender with the city of Taiyuan to the Sung he entered the service of Sung T'ai Tsung and became conspicuous for his daring and gallantry. Yang Yeh was perhaps the one man that the Liao Khitans feared, for he was so invariably successful in action with them that he was popularly referred to as 'Yang the Invincible.'\n\nIn 981 a Khitan force of many thousands again marched south. Yang Yeh learning of their plans laid a successful ambush of several hundred horsemen which caused the Liao army to fall back, abandoning their plan to invade.\n\nAgain, in 986 hostilities were once more embarked upon with the Liao Khitans. The Sung emperor sent four armies to attack them and at first they were successful. However, fortune then began to desert the Sung. First one army and then another were picked off and destroyed by the victorious Liao, one of which, commanded by P'an Jen-mei, was routed at a great battle at Ch'en-chia Ku near Huan-chou where the invincible Yang Yeh was killed whilst bravely fighting against overwhelming numbers. The Emperor felt the immensity of the loss of Yang Yeh who, as the Warden of the Marches, had been the most efficient commander serving Sung T'ai Tsung.\n\nNext is the story in legend. As a family they are renowned as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214042, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "77\n\nhealth and fortune would not be harmed by evil spirits. In fact, these two religious activities are held in Fanling Wai (the settlement of the Pang lineage in Fanling) by the Pangs exclusively. The Pang villagers, be they in Fanling Wai or in other settlements, will enjoy the supernatural benefit from these activities through the descent line of their father or husband.\n\nThis figure was collected from the Lands Department in the North District Office.\n\n12 See Fong, Peter, K. W., op. cit.\n\n\"But the Lees in Wo Hang, Sha Luk Kok recognised that renting village houses out would\n\ninfringe on the values contributing to the maintenance of their community as a whole. The villagers defined occupancy within the village as permanent residence, and the rights for it could only be enjoyed and inherited by their fellow villagers through the male line. Houses were not simply residential structures but constituted Wo Hang as an agnatic village community. The house was a source of the rootedness that permitted the natives to claim identity with their natal village community through their right of occupancy.\" See Allen Chun, op. cit., pp. 249-50.\n\nDavid Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the New Territories, Hong Kong, pp. 2-4. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.\n\nLiao Hua Chuan, \"Xin Jie Yifan Lai Min Quan Yi Lu You\" (The Origin of the New Territories Indigenous Inhabitant's Prerogative), p. 144, in Lu Yan (Ed.), Xiang Gang Zhang Gu (Legends of Hong Kong), Xiang Gang: Guang Jia Jing, 1987.\n\n16 See GWE Jones, “Rural Housing in Hong Kong\", in Lok, S. K. Wong (Ed.), Housing in Hong Kong: A Multi-Disciplinary Study, Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia), Hong Kong, 1975; Kwok Kam-chau, Planning for Village Development in the New Territories, M.Sc. thesis, The University of Hong Kong, 1987; Allen Chun, op. cit.; and James Hayes, Chinese Customary Law in the New Territories of Hong Kong, paper proceedings of the fourth International Symposium on Asian Studies in 1988.\n\n18 For details, see Heung Yee Kuk (Ed.), Xin Jie Xiao Xing Wu Yu Zheng Ce Te Ji (Special Collection of the New Territories Small House Policy), 1980.\n\n**Of this total of twelve houses, four were built in 1979, five in 1980, two in 1981, and one in 1982.\n\n19 The one allowed to build ding wu on Crown land had to pay a premium of about $4,000 at that time.\n\n20 210 hectares of this new town were designated for residential and commercial development, 50 hectares for industrial development, and 140 hectares for government and community use. See Hong Kong Government, Hong Kong 1984 (Annual Report), p. 132. Hong Kong Government Press.\n\n21 Hong Kong Government, Hong Kong 1985 (Annual Report), p. 183. Hong Kong Government Press.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214151, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 9, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "Sheilah Hamilton - The District Watch Force ... 199\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nHong Kong (From the Notes of a Russian Traveller), translation of an article written by Iosif Antonovich Goshkevich in 1871.... 229\n\nHong Kong, translation from a book chapter written by Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov in 1853 237\n\n...... 247\n\nR.G. Horsnell - The Story of Stanley Fort 257\n\nR.G. Horsnell - The Story of Gun Club Hill Barracks ..... 265\n\nB.C. Fawcett - First World War Labour Corps Cemeteries in Flanders 281\n\nKeith Stevens - The American Soldier of Fortune Frederick Townsend Ward: Honoured and Revered by the Chinese with a Memorial Temple 285\n\nRonald Bishop Smith - Sir Ralph Moor and the 'Benin' Cannon of the British Museum and the Royal Armouries 293\n\nPhotographs from the Hong Kong 1906 Typhoon contributed by Victoria Brown 297\n\nDan Waters - Arnold Graham, 1905 - 1996. 305\n\nTranslated letter from the Bishop of the Philippines to the King of Spain dated 1584 contributed by Robin M. Bridge.............. 315\n\nGeoffrey W. Roper - The Drunken Dragon Dance and the Tam Kong (Tam Kung) Festival: Notes on the RAS HK Visit to Macau, May 1997 .. 323\n\nRobert Nield - Bits of Broken China: The RAS Visit to North-east China in Search of Colonial Remnants, 1999 329\n\nviii", "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": 214460, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 318, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "285\n\nTHE AMERICAN SOLDIER OF FORTUNE FREDERICK TOWNSEND WARD HONOURED AND REVERED BY THE CHINESE WITH A\n\nMEMORIAL TEMPLE\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nFrederick Townsend Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1831 and though he is said to have attended a private college in the United States, which included a military element in its curriculum, he failed to graduate. He left home and as a young ship's officer sailed on several trading voyages to China.\n\nIn his twenties, having sought excitement and a career as a free-booter during which time he claimed that he had fought in the Crimea with the French and in Central America where he met Garibaldi, he sailed yet as an officer on a US registered ship to China where, at the time, the Taiping rebellion, a major rebellion against the Ch'ing [Manchu] dynasty, was at its height and he finally sought employment ashore. Basically, he was a mercenary who saw his chance and took employment first sponsored by local Chinese officials and supported by a Chinese official in the defence of the Shanghai area from the rebels, then later by Ch'ing officials in his campaign against the same rebels, either for gain or excitement, possibly both.\n\nWard raised a force of some hundred Western mercenaries, on behalf of the Chinese in Shanghai, together with scores of Filipinos, as well as soldiers and sailors discharged or deserters from the Anglo-French expedition, for the protection of the city against what seemed like an impending attack by the Taiping Rebel forces. This proved a failure and a year or so later he raised a highly competent and disciplined force of Chinese soldiers officered by Westerners to fight the rebels. Ward became a Chinese citizen with an official rank. He claimed Chinese nationality when arrested by the captain of a British warship for violating neutrality but in the event was handed over to the Chinese because of his \"non-nationality.\"\n\nAt first the force of about a thousand was known as the Foreign-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214465, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 323, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "290\n\nforces, and while a great argument raged between two governments as to which had jurisdiction over him, he having once claimed Chinese citizenship in order to remain in Chinese service, Burgevine was opportunely drowned by the capsizing of what the Celestials called a ferry-boat\". Franck's inclusion of the word 'opportunely' is intriguing.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe French, fearing a British plot to expand their influence in China, established its own foreign-trained Chinese forces in treaty ports, with the best known, the Ever-Triumphant Army [Ch'ang-chieh Chün] founded by Prosper Giquel in 1862.\n\nFranck, Harry A.: Roving through Southern China: Appleton-Century Company, New York: 1923\n\nAlthough the Memorial Temple dedicated to Ward I was interested in was in Sungkiang, another similar Memorial Temple had also been built in his honour in Ningpo near where he died.\n\nCarr, Caleb: The Devil Soldier; The American Soldier of Fortune who became a God in China: Random House: New York: 1991", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214819, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 234, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "200\n\nThe Effect on the People\n\nThe net result of all these \"teachings\" was to foster a particular outlook among the people, educated and illiterate alike. Along with other equally long-lived influences such as geomancy, and fortune-telling by various means, it created men like the father of Monlin Chiang, the well-known Republican scholar official, concerning whom the son wrote:\n\n\"He believed in feng shui, the spirits of wind and water, and in fortune-telling and therefore - with a sort of fatalism - that a man's life was predetermined by super-natural forces. However, he also believed that by virtuous conduct and clean thinking one could make these forces respond by bestowing blessings upon oneself and one's family; thus the predetermined course of life would gradually shift its ground to a better course.\n\n17\n\nThis outlook was probably quite uniform. Any variations to it were a matter of degree, dependent on to which end of the spectrum of belief and superstition men inclined rather than any more fundamental divide. Differences were determined largely by education, class, and status. In this particular instance, we are dealing with an educated man, a member of a gentry family, a regular Confucian. 18\n\nPART TWO\n\nPolytheism and Demonism: the \"Non-instructive\" Side of Chinese Religion\n\nThis second main division of Chinese religious thought and behaviour has to do with an immense preoccupation with gods and spirits, and the purposes and expectations lying behind it. Bombarded from every direction by Confucian exhortation and Buddhist admonition, the mass of the populace was aware that however filial or well-behaved people might be, there was much in this world that lay beyond human understanding or control.\n\nThis realization explains the existence of what may here be styled the \"non-instructive\" side of Chinese religion. It was an enormous arena in which, in their never-ending confrontation with evil spirits and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215063, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 159, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "116\n\nwhich tends to bewilder foreigners is the lone deity representing Taisui on one altar and images of his sixty forms on another. This appears to be due to a policy decision by the temple committee which decided that in addition to a lone Taisui, the whole group of sixty would be more appropriate and rather than replace the lone image they added the sixty on another altar. In other temples the Taisui group is represented merely by sixty almost identical heads affixed to individual wooden blocks that are covered in red paper or swathed in red ribbon. The range of images is quite wide with, for example, in a temple on Hong Kong island one of the sixty is an aged man with a long white beard. His image has as its neighbour a standing youth with one arm raised holding an axe.\n\nThe only image of the sixty which would seem to have a unique and extraordinary characteristic is the primary one of the sixty, Jiazi. It consists of two small arms in addition to his normal pair which emerge, one from each eye-socket, and stretch a short distance in front of his face with the forearms turned upwards at their elbows and the hands poised as if about to grasp something. Although his unique feature is to be seen in sketches in several 19th century western books, such as DuBose in 1885, his image depicted with his extraordinary feature has only been noticed on altars in three temples. All three are popular religion temples where all sixty images are arrayed along the walls of their side hall. In Pudong, across the river from Shanghai, he is portrayed as an ordinary male sitting on a bench, dressed in gilded robes, holding a small lion cub in his right hand. He has a black beard and eyebrows and with his unique feature. The Jiazi Taisui in the Taisui Hall in the temple at Song Shan in Taipei is wearing a blue outer robe decorated with gilded Daoist signs, and two large red roundels on his knees bearing the character Fu, for good fortune. He is holding two peaches in his left hand symbolising longevity, rather than a lion cub. An almost identical image is the initial Taisui of the set of sixty in the Taisui hall of the third temple, the Taipei Fazhu Gong Temple. However, this time the tiny arms and hands emerging from the eye sockets are much smaller than elsewhere. Nonetheless, the two sets in these Taipei temples have only been installed within the last decade and both sets appear to have been ordered from and carved on the mainland, possibly near Shanghai. These unique Taisui are obviously blind having these miniature arms and hands taking up their eye sockets, and temple custodians have no idea what these miniature arms signify. However, DuBose writing in", "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": 215081, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 177, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "134\n\nQuadrants of the 28 Heavenly Constellations, the image of Chen Wu [Xuan Wu], as Lord of the North, was usually to be seen on altars, usually in Daoist monastery or temple entrance halls, together with the Azure Dragon [Qing Long] of the East, the Vermilion Bird [Zhu Qiao] of the South and the White Tiger [Bai Hu] of the West, where they were the guardians.\n\nAlthough Tai Sui is the Minister of Time, another major deity, Fu Xi, has been credited not only with the establishment of kingly rule, 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 him 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.\n\nYang Ren\n\nThere is ambiguity over the rôles of the two deities, Yin Jiao and Yang Ren. In the very early days, before the emergence of the concept of the stems, the twelve branches were represented by images of the deities of the year with all twelve portrayed on altars in temples, especially in northern China where they were regarded as an entity commanded by Yang Ren. Later, when the Sixty Spirits of Taisui, that is the sixty cyclic deities, replaced the Twelve, they too were commanded by Yang Ren - or by Yin Jiao depending on local legend. According to the Fengshen Yanyi Yang Ren is the Jiazi Taisui [the first of the sixty combinations] and is known as Jiazi Taisui Zhengshen.\n\nXIE. [see photograph 4: with small hands emerging from the eye sockets] whilst Yin Jiao, as we have seen above, was identified in the same historical novel as the President of the Ministry of Time. Though we have accepted Yin Jiao as the President of the Ministry and Yang Ren being the identity of the primary Taisui, the picture is far from conclusive.\n\nThe Ten Stems and Twelve Branches have been represented in human form in a number of temples but, as far as can be ascertained, none has been connected with the Lord of Time, Taisui. One of two side walls of the main hall of a temple near Pingyang in Shanxi province representing the Lord of the Northern Dipper, Zhen Wu, contains 13th century frescoes depicting ten figures. These represent five of the Ten", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215108, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 204, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "161\n\nand the Fulu particular of two opera companies, the Xipi Pai and Erhuang Pai [or Fi Pai], the latter, the northern school, being especially dedicated to woodwinds3. In legend he is said to have had an emotional reunion with the soul of his dead concubine, Yang Guifei, in the palace of Guanghan on the Moon.\n\n4\n\nA tablet on a minor altar at the rear of a secondary hall in the temple of the City God in Hsinchu in northern Taiwan refers to him as Tang Xuan Zong, whilst his usual title in Taiwanese temples of the Lord of the Western Qin, Xi Qin WangyeE is not usually understood beyond Taiwan. There is no image, whereas in the Ma Tsu temple in Taipei a side altar is dedicated to him and his image, portraying him as a standard scholar-official with a black beard, is flanked by two very elderly male aides.\n\nIn South-east Asia images of the emperor have been seen in temples in Seremban and Ipoh in Malaysia, and in Singapore, in some of which he is simply referred to as Zunzhu Mingwang, the Lord Prince Ming, 尊主明王,\n\nAn image seen on the only altar in a side hall of the temple on Miaofeng Shan in Beijing's Western Hills and identified as Tang Ming Huang, is better known in the temple as the God of Happiness, Xi Shen [Photograph 2]. He is referred to as Liyuan Shen, and is portrayed as a smiling figure with beard and moustache, standing with his hands in a theatrical pose. His modern image is dressed in imperial yellow robes decorated with a large dragon and the whole body of the image is swathed in a red robe placed there by devotees.\n\nDisappointingly, there appears to be no image of the Concubine Yang on any altars. However, a modern [1996] tableau in an old temple, now converted into a theme-park, depicts in a series of life-size plaster images scenes ranging from the Tang Ming Huang's first sight of the Concubine Yang bathing, progressing through stages of his infatuation though ending before her death and his overthrow. This can be seen on a low hill overlooking the bend in the Yellow River at the south-western tip of Shanxi province, at a place known as Yang Guifei's pool. The main altar has the Tang Ming Huang and the Concubine sitting with her pouring wine for him. Before the altar stand three incense pots, a container holding fortune spills and plastic fruit as an offering and before", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215111, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 207, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "164\n\nThe next of our euhemerized heroes is the loyal victor, Guo Ziyi, whose armies were to a great extent the power behind the throne during the rebellion. He is best known to many by his title, Fenyang Wang, the King of Fenyang, an erstwhile name for Anhui province. He is one of the most renowned of Chinese generals, greatly distinguished following service under four successive Tang emperors. He lived to the then great age of 84, dying in AD 781 having been blessed with innumerable progeny, the offspring of his eight sons and seven sons-in-law, all of whom occupied high official posts. Legend claims that he had one hundred sons and one thousand grandsons, hence another of his titles, the Ancestor of Five Generations [Wu Dai Tongtang]. He is also known as Father of the Realm [Shang Fu] and having such a wealth of sons and grandsons, is popularly regarded and worshipped China-wide as the God of Happiness, Lushen. The image of the God of Posterity and Happiness, stage left in the trio of elderly men, the San Xing, the Three stellar Gods of Wealth, Fortune and Posterity, is frequently identified as Guo Ziyi. Such groups of three are to be seen in many Chinese homes and in the UK in most Chinese take-away shops [Photographs 4 and 5]. The standard image portrays him as an elderly scholar-official, standing, dressed in blue robes leading or holding his eight year old son in his arms. The blessings he enjoyed, namely honours, riches, longevity and posterity, were attributed in popular legend to the stellar maiden Zhi Nü, who was said to have appeared to him once on the day consecrated as her annual festival, the double seventh, when she promised him these rewards.\n\nIn temple legend he was born of a peasant family whereas in fact he was the son of a wealthy official, born in the far north in Shaanxi province. In southern China, however, he is claimed by Hakkas to have been a Hakka. His youngest son married the daughter of the Gao Zong emperor, and among the many stories related about Guo and his relationship with the Tang Court, possibly the best known tells of the princess refusing to offer her greetings to Guo, her father-in-law, on his eightieth birthday, as he was a mere commoner. Her furious husband beat her causing her to return to the Palace to complain to her father, the emperor. Meanwhile, Guo had his son bound and sent to Court for punishment. The emperor, recognising Guo's years of service and that domestic affairs were nothing to do with the Court, set his son-in-law free whilst the empress advised her daughter reach an accord with her husband.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215115, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 211, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "168\n\ntheir aid.12 Thus it was that although neither of the two deities had ever set foot in the Chaozhou area during their human existence, yet their divine spirits helped the native Chaozhou people and became their patrons. Chaozhou emigrants to Taiwan bore their cult from their local cult centre at Chaoyang, together with images, over to the new lands where at present there are some ten or so temples dedicated to the pair.\n\nSeveral versions of the tales of their heroism during the siege of Suiyang are related by temple keepers and devotees. Individual stories about Zhang and Xu are well known to Chaozhou devotees, describing how they dug holes to catch rats during the siege, and about Zhang slaughtering his beloved concubine, either to spare her being taken by the enemy or, more morbidly, to be eaten by the starving defenders. Each of the stories highlights their heroism in the face of starvation with no hope of relief from the siege, and their choice of death rather than surrender.\n\nThe two deities are revered together on the main altar in at least five temples in Taiwan. Zhang has some eight temples dedicated to him alone in Taiwan, whilst Xu has a further nine. A further fifteen temples contain one of these two deities under their other titles, with both deities, again under their true names of Xu and Zhang, being noted as the main deity on secondary altars.\n\nA Chuanzhou immigrant named Chen brought an incense pot with him from the cult centre of Baoyi Dafu [Zhang Xun] in Fujian and set it up as a branch temple in Shen Keng village near Taipei. According to temple lore, the deified Zhang Xun proved very efficacious in helping villagers with both good fortune and excellent harvests. Later, as the cult developed, it emerged from dream messages that Baoyi Dafu was also very effective in coping with the ravages of insect pests and, moreover, had won local renown by helping Chinese immigrants overcome the original hill tribesmen.\n\nHowever, in the centre and south of the Taipei Basin, Xu and Zhang together were known by Chuanzhou Fukienese by the single title of Wang Gong 尪公, Wang Yuanshuai 尪元帥 or Wang Wang 王王. Their local legend claims that Wang Gong appeared to a temple keeper in a dream, warning him and the local inhabitants of the San Hsia, Mucha, and Hsintien areas of an intended raid by head-hunting tribesmen from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215124, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 220, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "177\n\nA large modern tableau in the old former Five Springs Temple at the extreme south western tip of Shanxi province, overlooking the bend in the Yellow River with a pool in the temple grounds. The tableau depicts the Tang emperor Ming Huang and his concubine, Yang Guifei, at the site of the pool where she is said to have bathed. She is portrayed here as a slim beauty, pouring wine for the emperor, and not as a typical Tang plump beauty. Incense, fortune sticks and offerings have been left on the altar table by visitors.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215331, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 108, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "56\n\nhis bill. He described the lady who had ordered the materials and when he heard that it was the goddess herself he forwent his bill and donated the materials. The temple was built on the side of the hill above Wenchang town, called Shuiwei Po, which became the cult centre.\n\nMarginal variations of the story heard in Penang and Cambodia include the following: a number of fishermen aboard a junk threw out their net and drew in an enormously heavy but small log, requiring the joint effort of the whole crew. After their communal vow to have the log carved and having hauled in two large catches, they were so embarrassed at not being able to afford to have the log carved and to raise a shrine to house it they left it on the edge of the village where it was incorporated into the walls of a pigsty. Pigs however began sickening and dying, and only when Pan saw a glowing light over the pigsty did he recall the log and their promise. He burnt incense, asked forgiveness and all became tranquil and normal. People claimed to have seen an exquisitely beautiful young woman on the branch overhanging the pigsty and came to realize that it was the spirit of the log. They collected funds, had a temple built and the log carved into the shape of the woman they had seen on the branch. The temple became the cult centre for the Holy Mother who is also known as:\n\nPaihai Shen The Spirit who Controls the Seas.\n\nAccording to Wilmott10, Shuiwei Shengmu, the main deity in the Hainanese temple in Phnom-penh, changed her name to being simply Shengmu because the Cantonese connotation of the term 'Shuiwei' was associated with bad fortune in business11 and kept many people from frequenting the temple.\n\n4: Uniquely Hainanese Secondary Deities\n\n[though a few are also revered China-wide by Han Chinese]\n\na] The One Hundred and Eight Brothers-\n\nYibai lingba Xiongde 一百零八兄弟\n\nThe tablet to the 108 Brothers is exclusively revered on secondary altars in Hainanese temples in South-east Asia only. The Brothers are", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215369, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 146, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "95\n\nCHINESE BABY CARRIERS:\n\nA HONG KONG TRADITION NOW GONE\n\nVALERY GARRETT\n\nNine o'clock on a sunny morning in April 1989, and I was standing on the pier that juts out like a finger into Starling Inlet, a stretch of sea separating Hong Kong from China. About fifty fisherwomen were yelling at the top of their voices and pushing scraps of clothing in my face. My goal, apart from the immediate one of not falling into the murky waters below, was to acquire traditional clothing from the people of Sha Tau Kok, the fishing village that straddles the border with China.\n\nI was taking part in a research project for the Hong Kong Museum of History to collect and document material culture, through purchases and donations, from the farming and fishing communities in the New Territories, before urbanization changed the area forever. It was a timely mission, for today the paddy fields have gone, and market towns have been absorbed by high-rise apartment blocks housing the refugees who arrived from China in the 1970s and 80s.\n\nI became aware in the late 1970s, that change would soon affect the rural areas, and had paid numerous visits to the New Territories in search of traditional dress. Then, together with an interpreter to help with unfamiliar dialects, I made forays into the countryside each week, visiting remote villages where life had changed little for the past hundred years. Although I was viewed at first as a crazy gwaipo, before long the villagers were yielding to my requests for old clothing they no longer needed. The loose black pyjamas, shady straw hats, colourful children's dress and brightly decorated wedding outfits were collected, photographed and carefully researched.\n\nBoth periods of collecting produced large numbers of children's clothing, kept for sentimental reasons, as well as good fortune, until the child was grown. Cloth baby carriers were some of the most common items collected. Carrying a baby on the back was long regarded in southern China as a safe and convenient place for a mother or servant to keep a child out of harm's way. Many women had to work and care for children at the same time, either in the fields growing rice or vegetables, or helping with...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215372, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 149, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "98\n\ncotton, approximately 60cm to 75cm square and gathered slightly at the top edge. Red silk ones, padded for warmth, were embroidered in satin stitch with designs of birds, flowers, or the qilin, a mythical animal, which symbolizes great wisdom. A wide band at the neck formed a comfortable shield against cold winds, while others had fur lining and hoods. Covers made by the Hoklo women were extremely decorative, and embellished with embroidery, appliqué, braid, rickrack, wool tassels, fringing, sequins, strings of tiny beads and bells, matching the carriers they covered (Plate 4). True works of art, they took many months to complete.\n\nDesigns of Carrier Centres\n\nThe centre of the carrier was decorated in many different ways. The early style had a square of red silk or sometimes wool embroidered with satin stitch. Bats, symbolizing happiness, and the Eight Buddhist emblems surrounded auspicious designs of flowers, or often the qilin. At the centre top of the square, was a small folded triangular piece of cloth, from three to five layers thick. It was considered to be a lucky charm and originally represented the five blessings: health, wealth, happiness, long life, and the right to a natural death. In recent times only one or two layers were used. As well as being a lucky charm, it had the advantage of indicating which way up the carrier was usually worn, thus conforming to the shape of the child.\n\nThe Cantonese and Hakka women favoured red, considered an auspicious colour, or vibrant shades of flaming orange or bright pink. The ground cloth was usually of cotton or rayon satin for special occasions. Various good luck symbols were brightly embroidered in fuchsia, orange, lemon and vivid green satin stitch in floss or twisted silk on the centres. A pair of mandarin ducks symbolized marital fidelity and conjugal happiness, while the lotus flower represented purity and, with its seedpod, a wish for fruitfulness (Plate 5). Likewise, pomegranates with their many seeds stood for abundance in all things, especially sons.\n\nMany of the designs had a charming period feel: the influence exerted by books of embroidery designs popular in Shanghai in the 1920s and '30s was still strong (Plate 6). Chinese characters were used frequently for long life and good fortune; those for 'double happiness'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215399, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 176, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "Peacock \n\nBALAUDAMA* (RAS \n\n* A*MMERMERAD \n\n125 \n\n. An emblem of beauty, sometimes used in place of the phoenix. The phoenix's appearance in Chinese history is common and “liable to glorify a peaceful reign or flatter a successful ruler\". The peacock's feather decoration was granted for meritorious services and contributions to charity. The feathers had 3, 2 or 1 \"eye\" according to the grade conferred. \n\n: Flower of riches and honour; emblem of love and affection; omen of good fortune, \n\nPeony \n\n牡丹花,代表富贵,所以又稱國色天香, \n\nPlum blossom: Purity, nobility, constancy, modesty. \n\nKAHA AA· KOAXAC \n\n懷若谷。 \n\nSilk \n\n: \n\nThe silkworm is an emblem of industry and its product is symbolic of delicate purity and virtue. \n\n蠶緣強勤,它產的絲象征純潔的德行。 \n\nSilver \n\nBrightness and purity, a measure of value. \n\n***COMK HAMUN - \n\nVine and grapes : Symbolises abundant harvest of all food crops. \n\nFuk (fu) : Luck, Luk (lu) : Prosperity; Sau (shou) : Longevity \n\n福:幸福、祿:富貴、壽:長壽 \n\nBibliography \n\nJulian Lloyd Webber. Beatrice Harrison: A Pioneering Spirit of Her Age. The Strad, December 1992, p.1172. \n\nMargery Perham and Mary Bull (eds). The Diaries of Lord Lugard. Vols 1-3. London: Faber and Faber, 1959. \n\nMargery Perham and Mary Bull (eds). The Diaries of Lord Lugard, Vol. 4. Illinois: North Western University Press, 1963. \n\nC. A. S. Williams, Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives. Third Revised Edition. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1976.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215519, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 296, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "246\n\ncould be traced in regard to this burial ground, though the noted Scottish botanist and traveller Robert Fortune, who visited Hong Kong between 1843 and 1846, recorded:\n\nBefore leaving China [1846], I had occasion to visit this spot of ground (the old barrack area in West Point), the grave of many a brave soldier. A fine road31 leading round the island…passed through the place where they had been buried. Many of their coffins were exposed to vulgar gaze, and the bones of the poor fellows lay scattered about on the public highway no one could find fault with the road having been made there, but if it was necessary to uncover the coffins, common decency required that they should be buried again…38\n\nOther Early Cemeteries\n\nHong Kong's initial progress as an entrepôt was slow, nevertheless, by the 1850s, Hong Kong's position as a trading centre had gradually been consolidated. Before the emergence of a recognizable Chinese merchant class in the later half of the 19th century, foreign merchants, the bulk of whom were British, dominated the local political and economic scene. Nevertheless, some of the most prominent and best remembered foreign traders came neither from Europe nor North America, but from the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. These included the Parsees, the Indians and the Jews.\n\n39\n\n40\n\nA Parsee (or Zoroastrian) cemetery in Happy Valley was granted as early as 1852, and the first grave was erected there in 1858. The Jewish Cemetery, located south-east of Wong Nai Chung Village and near some paddy fields, was first laid out in 1855 when the first of the Jewish merchants from Guangzhou settled in Hong Kong. The lease for land for a cemetery was granted in 1857, the year of the first burial.42 As the community was not large, the number of burials was small. By the end of the 19th century, burials were limited to about sixty. The cemetery was described as 'neglected' in an 1890's tourist guide.44\n\nThe Muslim cemetery in Happy Valley had been deeded to the community in 1870, and a mosque with rooms for burial preparations was added. Prior to this, a Mohammedan cemetery, located at roughly the present site of St. Stephen's Girls College along Park Road, can be found in an 1863 map.46\n\nHowever, no further information on this", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215541, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 318, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "268\n\n38 Fortune, Robert (1935). THREE YEARS' WANDERINGS IN THE NORTHERN PROVINCES OF CHINA. Shanghai: The University Press, p. 22 (footnote),\n\n39 Inscriptions found at the entrance of the cemetery. However, in Barbara-Sue White's TURBANS AND TRADERS: HONG KONG'S INDIAN COMMUNITIES (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 17, the year stated is 1854.\n\n40 Information provided by the Rev. Carl T. Smith.\n\n41 \"The cemetery can be found in an 1863 map, see Hal Empson, p. 132.\n\n42 Smith: A SENSE OF HISTORY, p. 401\n\n43 Ibid, p. 402.\n\n44 A HAND-BOOK TO HONGKONG BEING A POPULAR GUIDE TO THE VARIOUS PLACES OF INTEREST IN THE COLONY, FOR THE USE OF TOURISTS (1893). Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, p. 94.\n\n45 杜瑞樂 (Joel Thoraval)著(張寧譯)(2002):《葬禮與祈禱的安排:香港回教信託基金總會歷史概貌》(1850-1985),載陳慎慶編:《諸神嘉年華:香港宗教研究》(Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, p. 392.\n\n46 Empson, p. 132. The cemetery is also shown in another 1866 map in the same book, see p. 49.\n\n47 Information provided by the Rev. Carl T. Smith. Details regarding the founding of this cemetery are not known as yet. In a 1863 map, at the site of the subsequent Muslim cemetery, an area marked as 'Indian soldier' can be found, which might be an early burial ground for Indian soldiers, but details regarding its founding is not known, see Empson, p. 133.\n\n48 The graves in this cemetery were removed to Cape Collinson Catholic Cemetery, around late 1980s and early 1990s, according to Father Louis Ha, long after the Bethanie had been purchased by the University of Hong Kong in the early 1960s,\n\n49 \"For the breakdowns of population figures, see Blue Books or HKGG of the corresponding years.\n\n50 The figure included that of 'British Kowloon,' i.e., the area south of old boundary", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215597, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 374, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "324\n\nJapanese were able to demand the formal opening of Chongqing to steamers, and a clause to this effect was embodied in the Treaty of Shiminoseki. By this treaty, under the favoured nation clause, the Chongqing and the Upper Yangzi became open to the world and Little immediately applied to the then British Minister, Sir Claude Macdonald [of the later Boxer Siege fame], who encouraged Little to proceed and promised energetic support. Little ordered a twin-screw steamer to be built in Shanghai, fifty-five feet long and ten feet beam. It steamed at nine knots, and though he would have preferred a larger and more powerful vessel he had to cut his coat according to his cloth. This was the Leechuen.\n\nHe left Yichang on 15th February 1898 for the 500-mile voyage through the Gorges, ascending some 500 feet during the journey to Chongqing. The story, told by Archibald Little in his Through the Yangtse Gorges,2 describes the most frightening moment when at dusk in the Scissors Gorge, making about six knots they bumped over a sharp rock that cut through the inch planking, broke two hardwood frames and sent water spouting up over the saloon floor. Fortunately they soon spotted a steep patch of sand on to which they ran the boat. Then, overnight, they stuffed cotton, white lead and tallow into the cracks; nailed blankets down with planks all over and by dawn had stopped the leak sufficiently to be able to get under way again. The rock had only newly fallen from the cliff above and had been unknown to the pilot. They reached Chongqing eleven days up from Yichang and the only photograph I have seen of the Leechuen during her epic journey is a very fuzzy snap of high cliffs with the Leechuen amidstream, a not so large speck, her billowing smoke being almost twice her size.3\n\nTwo British gunboats, H.M.S. Woodcock and H.M.S. Woodlark, made the same journey fifteen months later in May 1899, and then, in June, the first merchant steamer, Pioneer, followed them up to Chongqing.\n\nWe now turn to William Mesny. In 1878 and 1879 he travelled across south-west and central China calling on the most powerful and influential officials and gentry, advising them to adopt modern means for developing the riches of the country and bettering their conditions.* Mesny was a Jerseyman who spent most of his life, from first setting foot in China in 1861 until his death in Hankou in 1919 endeavouring to make his fortune. He was never backward in relating how he had the ears of many of the most influential Chinese of the day and although", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215647, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 424, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "376\n\nWyndham Street, and set about getting the rusting machinery operating again. Luckily he was able to find pre-war newsprint in a disused godown and a working electric generator, which he transported to Wyndham Street. He had been appointed by the Royal Navy Commander in Chief of the liberation fleet as Press Liaison Officer and Controller of Government Printing, pending the return to civil administration.\n\nAs a result, Hong Kong's first post-war newspaper came out on 30th August 1945. It was a single column sheet, nine inches by five, and in bold type under a big heading read: 'Fleet Entering.' Twenty thousand copies were run off and it was circulated free of charge. The same evening it was changing hands for one dollar. The following morning it was worth five dollars.\n\nFrederick Franklin died in 1955 and was buried in the Colonial (now Hong Kong) Cemetery in Happy Valley. His son, Douglas, returned to England after war service with the Royal Australian Navy. He qualified at Cirencester, in England, and joined the Colonial Agricultural Service and was posted to Nigeria. After that country was granted independence in 1960 Douglas returned with his family to Australia. With his experience of tropical agriculture he joined the Agricultural Department in Papua New Guinea. His story and that of his family is fairly typical of many Britons and their relatives who enjoyed a peripatetic existence in the days of Empire.\n\nItems donated by Douglas Franklin to our Branch comprise the following:\n\n1. Presentation specimen (1 5/8 inches high by 2 inches diameter) of the first telephone cable connecting Canton (now Guangzhou) and Hong Kong, dated 1 September 1931. This was presented to Mr Franklin senior. His son today confirms that, in those days, there was splendid co-operation between the two cities.\n\n2. This consists of an ivory canister, about 3 inches high, which contains 30 \"fortune sticks\" inscribed on both sides. They are similar to the larger bamboo version frequently found on altars in Chinese temples in Hong Kong. After shaking the canister, if done correctly, one fortune stick \"worms\" its way up and drops out. One then reads the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215648, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 425, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "377\n\ninscription. The ivory canister is accompanied by a book to which one refers to read one's fortune. In Cantonese, this method of fortune telling is called Cow Tsim\n\n3. A copy of the Hong Kong Telegraph Pictorial Supplement dated 2nd June, 1934. It includes a group photograph of staff and pupils of the Peak School among who is Douglas Franklin's sister - Sylvia. Other photographs in the supplement include the construction of the Shing Mun dam, the latest fashion and high society of the day\n\n4. Photograph taken some time before Mr Frederick Franklin's wedding in 1925. Mrs Franklin had been a nursing sister employed at the Government Civil Hospital in Western District. She originated from Scotland\n\n5. The old Peak Church, taken in 1925, where Frederick Franklin and his bride were married\n\n6. Saint John's Cathedral Choir, on the steps of the Cenotaph in Statue Square, taken at the Armistice Service in 1938. The statue of Queen Victoria, under the canopy, is in the background. The Cenotaph is a smaller version of the one in Whitehall, London\n\n7. Christmas Fancy Dress Party at the Peak Hotel, 1924. The hotel was demolished after World War Two\n\n8. Snapshot of Mr Franklin senior with Sir Robert Ho Tung, one of Hong Kong's most famous sons. Robert Ho Tung died in 1956. Although Eurasian he normally wore Chinese clothes\n\n9. Snapshot taken in 1924 of Frederick Franklin and the lady who later became his wife, together with a friend in front of a matshed at Repulse Bay. The three are in \"whites\" and, apart from pith helmets, the two men are dressed very much as we dressed in the 1950s and '60s. Mr Franklin was wearing shorts and knee-length socks and his male companion was wearing a Saigon linen wet-wash suit\n\n10. Another snapshot taken in 1924; again, all three are wearing similar attire. Father sits on the running board of the car, which is definitely 1920s vintage", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215848, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 147, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "80\n\nAppendix:\n\nA Failed Scholar\n\nBy the late 1950s, degree men like Mr. Lo Sheung-fu were few, but it was still possible, by enquiry in the villages, to seek out some old men who, in the language of an earlier day, were failed scholars. By great good fortune, when District Officer, South, I was able to visit one of their number in Ho Chung, one of the larger villages of the Sai Kung area.\n\nBorn in 1876, old Mr. Chan Min-yue was already 86 years old. His house was still older, and its interior, blackened with soot, had like its owner seen better days. The dwelling was one of several within a large courtyard, approached from the outer village street by an entrance gate, and situated within his own clan's section of the village.\n\nBent and shuffling in his gait, Mr. Chan was rather deaf. He could not see very well, and his voice quavered, but he responded well to my enquiries and his memory was still good.\n\nHis education had been long and ultimately expensive: first, at little cost, in his own village school for seven years, then in Canton for another six or seven at a considerable annual outlay to his father. One hundred silver dollars was the figure mentioned, though this was probably an approximation intended to convey the sense of expense. Board and lodging had been required, as well as tuition fees. All in all, he had taken the prescribed examinations leading to the first degree five or six times, but always without success. His father had become reluctant to spend even more money, and the young man had to return to the village. He then went into business with a herbal and Chinese medicine firm in a market town, which (he told me) provided him with a pension when he retired.\n\nUnlike many other failed scholars, Mr. Chan had never taught school, but his proficiency in writing scrolls and couplets had been recognized and utilized in the village and neighbourhood. He carried on with his calligraphy until old age and increasing debility obliged him to stop. Men of this type were accustomed to meeting together for literary pursuits. They composed poetry and discussed its merits, held literary competitions, and wrote scrolls and couplets, replicating at the local level the more prestigious gatherings of senior officials, gentry and literati of the kind to be found in all the district and prefectural cities of China, and in the provincial capitals, like Canton.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216032, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 331, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "265\n\nin 1144, built to the west of the Bridge of a Thousand Autumns, Qianqiu Qiao, beside a small canal with landing places attached. It would seem to have been inside the present city, about where the road from the west gate crosses the canal, before you reached the City God Temple. It was restored in 1271 with a commemorative inscription composed by Liu Xiufu, and the whole establishment was enlarged during the Ming so as to have 109 rooms, with stabling for 80 horses, forty of which had to be kept constantly saddled, presumably for use by imperial messengers.\n\nMoving on to the Yuan [Mongol] dynasty, an interesting account, if indeed it is genuine, claims that Marco Polo mentioned the foundation of Nestorian Christian churches at Zhenjiang (Cinghian fu) by a Nestorian Christian governor, Mar Sargis [or Mar George] from Samarkand. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor of China during the 13th century employed foreigners within his civil service, one of whom was Marco Polo who spent three years as Governor of Yangzhou, the city a short distance upstream on the northern arm of the Grand Canal immediately across the Great River from Zhenjiang. The story goes that the maternal grandfather of Mar Sargis cured Genghis Khan of a sickness by administering sherbet and his secret recipe. The latter was passed down the family and each generation did good business ensuring their fortune. The story of his appointment as governor would appear to have been confirmed by various entries in the old records of Zhenjiang in which there are references to seven Christian monasteries [i.e. churches] in or near the city, adding that the Zhenjiang Christian population in about AD 1280 amounted to 215. These were started after Mar Sargis had a dream in which he was instructed to construct seven Nestorian churches. Using his fortune he is said to have completed all seven but unwittingly with one on the site of a former famous Buddhist monastery which Mar Sargis was ordered to hand back to the Buddhists. Of the remaining six two were said to have been on the ridge running inland from the former site of the British consulate.\n\nDuring the early days of the Ming, in the reign of the Yongle emperor, various expeditions sailed down the Yangzi from Nanjing, and out into the Eastern Ocean, a commander of several of the expeditions being the renowned eunuch, Zheng He. The policy of despatching such expeditions far beyond China's shores was short-lived. Between 1405 and 1425 Zheng's fleet voyaged through south-east Asia", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216033, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 332, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "266\n\nand on as far as the coast of Africa bringing back treasures which included the first giraffe. These expeditions would have sailed past Zhenjiang and must have been a sight to behold.\n\nToday Zhenjiang is twinned with Tempe, near Phoenix in Arizona. Presumably there is a common factor linking these two places but whatever it might be has escaped me.\n\nHostile incursions up the Yangzi\n\nDown the centuries many raids by Japanese pirates on the eastern Chinese seaboard, some large scale but mostly small, led to the permanent awareness and terror amongst the Chinese along the coastline. The Yangzi estuary was not spared and on a number of occasions they even penetrated up River as far as Zhenjiang. Having been beaten off during the 12th century they reappeared in force during the early 13th century, and in 1419 they were beaten decisively and piracy stopped for a while. The Japanese were again defeated in 1542 by Yu Dayu, however, they reappeared in force in the Yangzi in 1550 capturing Zhenjiang before going on to threaten Nanjing. For three months they plundered the Zhenjiang area before retiring with their booty. For many a year the hills around the city each had beacons ready to fire to warn of impending Japanese attacks. - and by the end of the 14th century their depredations were recurring annually.\n\nA major incursion up the Yangzi was made in 1629 by a naval force despatched by Zheng Zhilong, the father of Zheng Chenggong, better known to foreigners as Koxinga and Taiwan's most famous hero. Koxinga was a child of destiny, a seagoing warlord who opposed and fought the newly-established Manchu Qing dynasty on the mainland from his base in Taiwan. He finally established a new mini-dynasty which ruled Taiwan for some twenty or so years. His father, Zheng Zhilong [1604-1661], had been a notorious Xiamen [Amoy] Chinese pirate chief who had made a fortune through his trading and piracy, raiding the shipping and settlements of south China with his fleet of pirate raiders and trading junks. The Ming authorities, to tame him, allowed themselves to accept his offer of service and were forced into making him an admiral and a marquis in charge of the suppression of piracy - and thus drew his teeth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216064, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 363, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "297\n\nbandits to seek their fortune. Mesny explained that the opportunity occurred for 'the four bold adventurers' to leave the city together with the bandits together with several old Taiping chiefs, amongst whom was a brother of the Shou Wang, the Taiping leader who formerly had held Ningbo. The four, Jerome, a cripple having had one of his legs damaged during the [Opium] war; Captain O.P. Damström, a Swede; Anthony Fiamin, an Austrian from Fiume; and Beeman, a Britisher from London. Mesny believed that they were the only foreigners who actually served with the Nian rebels. Mesny went to see them off and Jerome embraced him very affectionately after the manner of his country. They had not been gone very long when Mesny received a letter from Damström saying that he had been wounded in a cavalry charge against some 'trainbands' who had attempted to cut them off from the main body. The Four Bold Adventurers had then accompanied the Nianzi in their revolving rambles all over the country lying between the Yangzi and the Yellow River from Hankou to Zhifu and back again until the whole body of the bandits had been beaten and dispersed. At the dispersion Damström had been taken prisoner by the Imperial forces and as such had been brought down to Zhenjiang in a cage, or so Mesny understood, and had it not been for Captains Welsh and Macdonald who had been in charge of the artillery and rocket batteries in one of the Imperial camps Damström would very likely have been done to death like his three companions none of whom, though they had surrendered to the Imperial forces, ever returned to the [treaty] ports. Beeman was said to have been buried alive in Shandong, Jerome and Anthony appeared to have been murdered by their captors in northern Jiangsu [province], having become separated during the last few days march.\n\nWe know remarkably little about Mesny's life during the 1880s. A very serious famine ravaged Anhui province during 1888/9, and Mesny, then aged 46, made two long journeys through Anhui and northern Jiangsu provinces to judge and report on the extent of suffering. During his journeys, Mesny later wrote, he discovered that Earl Zeng [Guochuan], the Viceroy of Nanjing, needed the funds raised earlier by a Shanghai charity, the Renjishan Tang, to appease and pay off the Cantonese bandits, the Shap-ng Tsoi,33 who were very active in the Yangzi valley at the time. Mesny added that he, Mesny, in 1889, had assisted in the pacification of the excited populace at Zhenjiang where he had arrived a few hours after the British Consulate and other buildings", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216182, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 481, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "415\n\nAnd even after the first Opium War in 1841 the secret of tea remained an enigma. As it became possible to travel in China the Royal Horticultural Society of London sent botanist Robert Fortune to procure 'the finest varieties of the Tea-plant, as well as native manufacturers and implements, for the Government Tea plantations in the Himalayas.' (Goodwin p.12) Goodwin describes the torturous process that resulted in the first Assam tea reaching London in 1839. (Goodwin p.148) It was not a huge success, mainly because no one in India knew how to process tea.\n\nFinally, in 1848 Fortune determined that green and black tea came from the same plant, the only difference being in their manufacture. The secret was in a process referred to as fermentation, which is entirely unrelated to fermentation of sugars and starches to make alcohol. It is actually manipulation of the leaves to promote the oxidation of the leaves. (Goodwin p.132/3)\n\nportable greenhouses\n\nEmploying the latest technology Fortune successfully transported tens of thousands of Chinese tea plants to India. (Kit p.61) Goodwin describes this success as a 'mummy's curse' because Chinese teas crossed with Indian teas to ‘become a shrubby Frankenstein's monster, popping up all over the place and spoiling the planters' rest' (Goodwin p.121). Despite this unfortunate genetic engineering disaster by the 1880's Indian teas overtook Chinese teas in the ever-expanding British market. (Goodwin p.221) Initially Chinese teas were blended with Assam tea but ultimately Assam teas held their own. The massive outbound migrations of Fujianese on tea clippers were a direct result of the collapse of the tea industry in China, as the world markets became less dependent on Chinese tea. Hopefully the current intellectual property issues and trade imbalances between China and the USA will be resolved more amicably than those of the 19th century.\n\nWhile Chinese were reluctant to divulge details of the tea manufacturing process there were other sources of information. Lu Yu's Tea Classic of the Tang Dynasty describes the growing and manufacturing process in enough detail for practical purposes. Even if the book was not available in China it was in Japan where it formed the foundation of the tea ceremony. Japan, too, had a thriving tea industry. It is surprising the resourceful tea hunters did not try there.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216198, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 497, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "431\n\nTHE WRESTLING PRINCES\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nDown the years I have visited many, many Chinese temples in my search for images of the deities and their legends. One near the coastal town of Muar in western Malaysia contained a pair of deities well known to me standing on the altar table before and below the main altar. The image consisted of a pair of conjoined deities - the Taibao Sheren, a Fujian local popular religion Daoist cult, involving a pair of youths, princes, so the story goes, who in image form are depicted standing together, legs apart, holding on to each other either with one arm around the other's shoulders or clutching a part of the other's anatomy, such as the knee, as if wrestling. In this instance the Taibao possibly means The Great Guardian, an old dynastic title for one of the most senior of the Chinese imperial advisers rather than the Great Protector which is the literal meaning. Sheren was a quasi-official title for \"independent kinsmen” in other words \"hangers on.”\n\nIndividually the two youths bear the names of Kang and Ruan though they were identified in two temples in southern Malaysia simply, one the Sheren as the Civil Protector, Wenbao and the other, the Taibao as the Military Protector, Wubao. They are worshipped for general good fortune and have only been identified in small Chinese temples within Fujian communities in Singapore, Malaysia, southern Thailand and in two or three temples in Taipei and Kaohsiung counties in Taiwan. In this rural temple near Muar Kesang the main deity on the altar is a seated matron known as Liu Jia Zhenren.\n\nFor Yuan Jian Zhenren, not seen anywhere else and said to be the mother of the two youths. Before and below her image are two sets of the youths, portraying them as wrestlers with leather shin-guards and wrist strengtheners, with one of the pair grasping the other firmly by the leg.\n\nThe two are believed by some to have been Indian princes brought to Fujian more than a thousand years ago and little more, apart from their surnames, would appear to be known at any of the temples in which these images have been seen. However, in one temple in Taiwan they were said to be the sons of a wealthy man. One son had shown great aptitude and had been sent to study in the capital, and was white\n\nJ", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216423, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 182, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "132\n\nof the war with intense fascination as Russia's ultimate victory, they believed, would lead to Russia riding roughshod all over northern China and not just over Manchuria.\n\nWhen, four days after the start of the war, China proclaimed her neutrality, England, France, Germany and Italy, all neutral powers, joined in suggesting to Russia and Japan that they avoid sending troops into Chih-li (Zhili - the Chinese metropolitan province), lest the Chinese Imperial Government should flee Peking. Both Russia and Japan agreed. The fact that at the outbreak of the war there were some five hundred Japanese instructors in the Chinese Army, having displaced many of the European instructors, might have complicated matters had not the belligerents and China appear to have disregarded the fact.\n\nWesterners, too, were unable to predict the outcome and in the event made a number of contingency plans. An Imperial Maritime Customs memorandum produced in Shanghai in 1904, produced by the Statistical Department of the Imperial Maritime Customs (IMC) concerned plans to rearrange Chinese land tax as more than half of China's revenue was mortgaged for payment of foreign loans, leaving insufficient funds in the event of the Russo-Japanese conflict spreading further into China.\n\nContraband of war\n\nForeign ships' captains made a fortune running the blockade from Chinese ports into Port Arthur and other Russian ports along the coast of Manchuria. One German merchant realised a profit of £10,000 in three months on contraband cargoes carried to Port Arthur by a steamer of only 180 tons burden.\n\nChina, not fully comprehending the implications of trading with both belligerents found herself accused by both belligerents of contravening the concept of contraband of war. After considerable discussion Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the IMC promulgated regulations to the effect that:\n\nContraband of war consists of purely military requisites, that is, arms and ammunition,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216425, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 184, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "134\n\nPre-war there were a large number of local Chinese in Russian employment in Manchuria. A typical throw-away line in a correspondent's lengthy report was the description of the unexpected naval assault on the Russian Far Eastern Fleet in Port Arthur in February 1904 which precipitated the war. \"The town was in confusion after this sudden and unexpected attack on the town initiating the conflict. Food prices soared as Chinese traders sold up and fled. Throughout the bombardment the Chinese streamed out to the hills wailing with fear. Clerks at one of the banks disappeared with large sums of money. Meanwhile, Chinese who were forbidden to travel by train during the mass exodus had converged on the harbour hoping to find places aboard foreign ships. Sampan men made a small fortune ferrying refugees out to the ships. Social organisation fell apart as Chinese servants and shop keepers fled leaving their employers and customers, the Russians, to fend for themselves.\"\n\nIn August 1904 the Japanese entered the Treaty Port of Newchwang (Niuzhuang, now known as Yingkou), the Russians having pulled out without fighting. The Japanese were surprised the Chinese there did not welcome them as deliverers, regretted the departure of Russian friends, and charged the Japanese two dollars where they only charged the Russians one. During the interval between the departure of the Russians and the arrival of the Japanese, Chinese refugees poured into the settlement in a ceaseless stream, carrying their goods and chattels. This was an all too familiar pattern ahead of the advancing armies.\n\nA correspondent's description of life in Mukden ahead of the approach of the Japanese as winter set in 1904 included his impressions of the daily scene with 'Manchus and Chinese, the men almost indistinguishable from one another, the Manchu women differing in their free stride from the mincing tread of their Chinese sisters. Cossacks and Chinese had soon established quite friendly relations. At every step you can see soldiers bargaining with inflexible Chinese for a bottle of vodka, or a handful of nuts or a pair of socks. Sometimes you see a soldier eating an apple in a fruit-seller's stall. This soldier was supposed to discharge the duties of a policeman, and the apple represents bribery and corruption.'\n\nAlthough there were many reports of Chinese and Manchu peasants taking sides and fighting for one or other of the belligerents for what", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216431, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 190, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "140\n\nthe Russian military with a major headache. Russian attempts to destroy brigandage inadvertently increased the dislike with which they were regarded by the local inhabitants. It was not long before Chinese peasants supported the bandits who also received secret encouragement from Chinese and Manchu officials. The native officials hated the foreign usurpation of their power, but were impotent to openly protest against it.\n\nThe Russians tried to avoid any interference with the Chinese provincial administration in Manchuria which remained intact, continuing in the hands of Chinese officials, though the Russians instituted their own police service. However, the Russian occupation was distasteful to the official class as a whole, as it diminished both their prestige and, consequently, their emoluments. So that from the official class the Russian met with a hostility which took the form chiefly of passive resistance.\n\nA number of snippets in the illustrated War in the East refer to the 'Chunchuses' operating alongside Russian troops on the road to Mukden. One such reads 'On 15th June 1905 took place the battle of Telissu while on the 12th General Kuoki reported the occupation of Huairen Xian by a detachment of his (Japanese) troops, who expelled a force of six hundred Russians and Chunchuses.'\n\nThe Red Beards were to all intents and purposes soldiers of fortune, and as such fought for whomsoever they wished but only for as long as it suited them. In view of their general attitude towards the Russians it was surprising that they ever co-operated with them in the field. However, the Red Beards resembled the Cossacks with their habits of free life and distrust of military discipline, a common love of their horses and a shared prowess at horsemanship.\n\nBandits serving with Japanese forces\n\nThe Japanese were quick to appreciate the potential of the Hong Huzi as guerrillas. The large contemporary two-volume Japan's Fight for Freedom, a contemporary illustrated popular history produced in Britain, included several references to the Hong Huzi, describing them in the text as 'Hunhuses, serving under Japanese command.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]