[ { "id": 204323, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n87\n\nended in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict. At last T'ai-I hurled his powerful weapon, a lamp-shade of nine fire-dragons, into the air, which fell on the goddess and rendered her senseless. T'ai-I clapped his hands and immediately a flame rose up in the shade, and she died in the roaring blaze. The dragon-kings of the Four Seas now got a warrant from the Jade Emperor to arrest No-cha's parents. No-cha, with secret instructions from his master T'ai-I, rushed back to Ch'ên-t’ang Pass. When he saw the dragon-kings, he shouted in a terrific voice:\n\n\"It was I who killed Li Kên and Ao Ping and I should forfeit my life. How can you molest my parents?\" After this, he spoke to Ao Kuang, \"I am not to be slighted. I am an avatar of Ling-chu Tzu, the Intelligent Pearl. By the command of Yüan-shih I have descended to this world to fight for the establishment of the coming dynasty. I am determined to rip open my stomach, pluck out my intestines and pick out the bones, to return to my parents what I got from them. Are you satisfied with that?\" To this Ao Kuang agreed, and No-cha did as he had just said: he fell down to the ground and his souls dispersed. His corpse was put into a coffin and was ordered by his mother to be buried. (Ch.13)\n\nWe learn from the commentaries and the expository notes of the Ch'an school (or in Japanese Zen) of Chinese Buddhism that there are many historical and hereditary \"cases\" (Kung-an or in Japanese koan) handed down from generation to generation by the learned priests of this school of contemplation as material for their followers to study and to reflect upon. Most of these \"cases\" are metaphysical and to some extent mystical, and as cultivation in meditation involves some experiences which are not subject to communion between the learner and the Patriarch or the predecessors, it has relation with Tantrism.29 The story related in the Fêng-shên about No-cha (Nata) quoted above is one of the cases which appear in chüan 2 of the Wu-têng Hui-yüan (EK), a work written by Monk P'u-chi (#) of the Sung dynasty, and is retold in chüan 2 of the Chih-yüeh Lu (f), edited by Ch'ü Ju-chi (W) of the Ming dynasty. It runs as follows:\n\nPrince Nata, rending himself asunder, gave his flesh back to his mother and his bones to his father, and then manifesting\n\n20 Nan Huai-chin (RM), Ch'an-hai Li-ts'ê (THU), Ch. 15, \"Ch'an School and Tantrism\" (RANER), pp. 205-211, Ching Ming Hsüeh Shê (W204), Taipei, 1955. cf. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki ( Kil), Essays in Zen Buddhism, Second Series, p. 94, London, Luzac, 1933.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205397, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "152\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nA CANNON FROM THE END OF THE MING PERIOD\n\nYour Honorary Editor has suggested that I write a short piece about the cannon recently found near the Sino-British frontier about twenty miles from Kowloon. I do so with some hesitation, as I have not seen the piece and it has probably already received some attention, including a translation of the inscription. Nonetheless here is my rendering of the latter:\n\n\"Weight: 300 catties.\n\nConstructed on the 26th September 1650 by the following: Wu, Superintendent of Inland Seas, Chief Military Commissioner, installed (?) as Ting-hai General,\n\nTu, Governor General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, by imperial order.\n\nFan, Regional Commander of Kwangtung and guardian of the imperial heir (?),\n\nHsiao Li-jen, Local Commander of military operations, Su, Chief of bureau (?), Chief of military commission.”2\n\nIt is of some interest to note that the names of Tu, Fan, and Hsiao Li-jen appear also on the inscription of the cannon dated June/July 1650, found in Kowloon Bay in 1956.3 So far I have not been able to identify any of these individuals, especially since four of the five are listed by their hsing only. Doubtless they would all have owed their appointments to one or other of the Ming princes who were trying to uphold the authority of the tottering dynasty. One of these was Chu I-hai (Prince of Lu), then with headquarters at Chusan, captured by the Manchus on October 15, 1651. Another and more likely one was Chu Yu-lang (Prince of Kuei) who at this date held his court on boats at Wu-chou. Canton, after a siege of eight months, was taken by the Ch'ing forces on November 20, 1650.\n\nThese, as may be imagined, were parlous days for the house of Ming. Not alone for the surviving members of the imperial family, but also for the local population and the foreigners in their midst.4 One may surmise that the casting of cannon in the summer and early autumn of 1650 was a singularly difficult and hazardous one. But cannon and their casting were well known to the Chinese in this and earlier times.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207763, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "136\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nport for the work came from American United China Relief (UCR) funds through the American Friends Service Council (AFSC); there were members from Canada, U.S.A., New Zealand, as well as China itself; and the self-sufficiency required was much greater than that of other FAU groups.\n\nThe original plan, worked out in late 1940 and early 1941, was for a group of forty men, equipped with 20 trucks, a mobile operating theatre and mobile workshop, to undertake two tasks. The first was the transport of medical supplies into China from Burma and the second provision of medical teams to work with civilian and military hospitals. The proposals had the support of the British Fund for the Relief of Distress in China under Dr. H. Gordon Thompson, the Foreign Office, the U.C.R. and the AFSC. The trucks and equipment were purchased in the US and shipped to Rangoon where they were assembled and driven up to China. Dr. R. B. McClure, a Canadian medical missionary born in China, was appointed to lead the Unit.\n\nIt will be remembered that in 1941 Japan occupied all the coast of China, transport up the railway to Kunming from Hanoi had ceased and the only land routes into the western provinces still held by the Government of the Republic of China under Marshal Chiang Kai Shek were the Burma Road and the road from the USSR via Sinkiang. When the Sino-Japanese war widened into the Pacific War on December 8, 1941, about half of the FAU group had arrived in Burma and China, the first trucks were being assembled in Rangoon and the rest of the party and equipment were on the high seas. All arrived safely and the Unit undertook a number of interesting tasks during the Burma fighting of 1942.1\n\nMedical Services and Supplies in China\n\nDespite the diversion of manpower and loss of trucks and fuel in Burma the work of transporting medical supplies in China got underway in 1942. In 1941 there were four organizations concerned with military and civilian medical services:—\n\n1) the Army Medical Administration (AMA)\n\n2) the Chinese Red Cross (CRC)\n\n3) National Health Administration (NHA) Weishengshu (衛 生 署) with its civilian hospitals and clinics.\n\n4) Over 100 mission hospitals, responsible to their own Mission Boards.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208114, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW - \n\nLONG ISLAND\n\n137\n\nthe top sawyer in the neighbouring sawpit, and we pass towards that smithy beneath a banyan tree. The sinuous roots of the tree clutch the rock and strain like the arms of some vegetable octopus, and there just below the hanging threads of aerial roots is a tilt, and a furnace. The anvil is curious enough. There is one of the orthodox Chinese pattern but the other is a shell from some field-gun, goodness knows where it was found.\n\nNow we are in the main street at its more irregular Eastern end, interrupted here and there by sharp right-angled turns, and small shops begin to line the way. On our right a coffin maker plies his trade, and his workshop has a most attractive \"line\" of coffins on exhibition which seem to tempt that Chinese grandfather getting on in life, and thinking of providing for the future. Europeans unconsciously avert our eyes from the varnished glory of huge specimens that look like four tree trunks grown into one, but grand-father regards it with quiet pleasure. Some more blacksmith's shops, and a flight of irregular steps, and we are on the terrace of the temple of the Heavenly Queen, already referred to. This terrace overlooks the bay, and is put to practical use, not only as a point of vantage, but also to dry fish and sweet potatoes, and some strange ambiguous stuff. We can see a junk hauled up on the slip-way which was screened by the houses-hitherto. For all the clumsy upperworks her lines are clean and smooth below water, and her big lifting rudder and centre board appeal to the yachts-men. Those cannon in the bows are not for ornament only, for these seas swarm with pirate junks.\n\nJust now we will not stop to examine the dusty interior of this temple. Instead we descend into the street once more and continue our westward way. Near this place is a small hospital, a series of clean and pleasant courts and pavilions supported by the Kai Fong. This body is the real ruler of the town, elected by street committees and containing representatives of each of the four tribes. In the street a good-natured crowd drifts along. There is a brown-faced fisherman ashore for a stroll, and to buy cordage or food. He loiters before the chandlers shops, and discusses all topics before coming to the real question of the price of that double block and sheave hanging in the dim place under the ceiling. There are villagers carrying loads of vegetables to the pier, shuffling along with two great loads, one at each end of a bamboo resting on a great callous patch on their shoulders. Women are carrying water", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211893, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 308, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "283\n\nBatavia Roads to carry to and fro from the ship to the shore. These boats are always used by ships in Batavia and are paid four rupees or guilders a day. They are pulled by four Malays except when the wind allows sailing. The head man came on board. They had plenty of rice and fish with them which they ate with their fingers, as all Musselmen do. They are regular Mohammedans,\n\nThe one who stayed on board could speak a little English, and on the next evening I got alongside of him to try what I could make of him. I asked him a few questions but could not understand his answers, so I thought I would give up. At last he said, \"You not know her! You not sabby her? Her name Roleston. Not you sabby Roleston?\" I was very much surprised, as you may imagine, to hear him repeat that name, and how to think of it I could not imagine. What, thought I, can he know about Roleston, and whoever could he be talking about? At last I made out that there is a mercantile house in Batavia of that name, who have a ship of the same name, and this man had served the ship with his boat only a few days before, during the time she was loading. He was a fine intelligent-looking man, for a Malay.\n\nThe captain became more unbearable every day. From morning to night it was nothing but curses, grumbling, bullying, and threatening.\n\nOn Saturday night, June 30th, we stopped off Amsterdam, a small island about 12 miles from Batavia. Here I sat on deck and with the glass looked over the island, which was about a quarter mile off. It looked very pretty by moonlight. There were several native huts on the shore and in the interior, and at night each had a light burning, which looked pretty among the trees.\n\nIt is very pleasant to be sailing among these islands, all covered thick with trees wherever there is room for one to grow. It is truly sailing as the poet says:-\n\nAmid the green islands of glittering seas\n\nWhere fragrant forests perfume the breeze.'\n\nOn Sunday, July 1st, we had several boats come off to the ship from parties in Batavia who were canvassing for trade and patronage. One of them brought a Portuguese, who from being born and brought up in the tropics was as black as a negro. He delivered his card, and was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212346, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 288, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "265\n\nKok and Ta Kwu Ling people had established a trust to collect cash and construct this bridge: Chan Sheung-yan (of Luk Keng in the Sha Tau Kok area), and Lei Tsok-san (of Lei Uk in the Ta Kwu Ling area) were the two Chief Managers of this trust, representing the totality of the people of the two areas.\n\nP.H. HASE\n\nI\n\nNOTES\n\n\"Cheang Shan Kwa Tsz. An Old Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp 121-158.\n\nThe documents are contained in a recently recovered genealogy of the Chan clan of Luk Keng. I understand that a copy of this genealogy will be placed on record in the collection of Hong Kong historical documents held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in due course. I am indebted to Mr. Chan Wing-hoi for drawing my attention to these documents.\n\nII\n\nI am indebted to Mr. P.L. Lau for assistance in the translation of this document.\n\nThe Sha Wan River, unlike the main branch of the Sham Chun River, which flows in a deep and well-defined channel, was a shallow and ill-defined stream, which meandered through a broad valley which it often flooded. This river has now been dammed off to form the Shen Zhen Reservoir.\n\nSee the paper at n. 1 for details of the loss of life in this War.\n\nA VILLAGE WAR IN SHAM CHUN\n\nThe Rev. Carl Smith has drawn attention to the great wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on the history of the Hakka people of Kwangtung Province. When looking through his notes and summaries of important documents I saw a summary of an important document on an inter-village war in Sham Chun (深圳). Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, a photostat of the document was received, translated, and is published below.\n\nSham Chun lies at the centre of a broad and fertile valley, drained by the Sham Chun River. This river has four main tributaries: the stream which drains the Ta Kwu Ling valley (this stream is considered as the headstream of the main river), the Sha Wan River, which joins the first stream at Kim Hau (or) at the entrance to Ta Kwu Ling, the Sheung Yue (or Beas) River which drains the Sheung Shui/Lung Yeuk Tau area and which enters the main river", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212601, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Maymyo 1941 \n\nGUERILLA TRAINING* \n\nP. H. MUNRO-FAURE \n\n135 \n\nThe shortage of British shipping along the China coast became more marked during 1940 and 1941. The vessels built for this traffic, generally between three and four thousand tons in measurement, with comparatively shallow draft, were particularly suitable for use in the Persian Gulf and along the shores of North Africa. Many had been taken to serve as transports in those seas. Moreover, the Admiralty, sensitive to the dangers threatening the peace of the Far East, had directed such larger ocean-going vessels as still were available not to proceed west of Singapore. Consequently there was pressure on the remaining cabin space, and I was fortunate to obtain a berth in a small coaster, which took seven days to reach Hongkong from Shanghai, as against the usual four.\n\nHongkong was very quiet, a state of affairs not to be attributed to an entire absence of females. It was remarkable how many had succeeded in avoiding the order to leave the Colony. I had to wait a whole week for a passage to Singapore, where formerly berths on a dozen different ships would have been offered in the time. This gave me an opportunity to look around. Friends took me out to Deep Water Bay, where we sunbathed on the beach, and drank our tea on the club verandah, looking out over the little golf course. High up on the hill towards Wong Nei Chong Gap I could see the green tiled roof of the house where my wife and I, only three years previously, had been caught in the rain. I wondered whether the lady of the mansion was one of those who had contrived to remain behind. In the evening we drove round to the next bay and bathed from the Lido, a steel and concrete building of pleasing design housing a restaurant, and bathing booths. The hot weather had set in, but here a cool breeze blew down a gully on the hillside into the windows. I had always liked the place because of its informality. You could eat your dinner, and dance and talk, in shorts, and so keep cool, as compared with the stricter etiquette of the Gloucester and Hongkong Hotels, or the Repulse Bay Hotel, or even the Peninsular Hotel across the harbour, where several nights a week you were required to don “black ties”.\n\n*This is the third part of the Memoirs of Col. P H. Munro-Faure. See Editor's Note, p 61, vol. 29, and Plate I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214516, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 374, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "343\n\nFurther west still, on the edge of Four Funnel Bay, is a fort containing a large gun emplacement (complete with large gun) and extensive underground magazines and chambers. South from here takes one along the former \"Queen's Road\" past a number of buildings including the former Royal Marines barracks and the officers mess.\n\nBack to the harbour front and the mass of naval storage and commercial buildings that we saw from the ferry. The map shows these as being the victualling store, the blacksmith's shop, the fire engine house and other evocative descriptions. Standing four-square with no obvious means of entry, and clearly visible from the sea as the tallest of the buildings, is the distillery - as vital to a naval station as any of the other facilities there. Running through the buildings and along the little streets are tram tracks. An extensive system used to enable goods to be unloaded at the end of the pier from incoming ships and moved for storage.\n\nA fascinating and well-preserved place to just “poke about,” Liu Kung Tau was a gem and a highlight of the trip.\n\nDalian - Far Away, by Whatever Name\n\nWe had been advised by the travel agent to cross to Dalian from Yantai rather than take the service from Weihai. The boats, we were told, are better and faster. Not many weeks after our trip we were to hear of the tragedy whereby almost 300 people lost their lives when one of the Yantai boats went down in heavy seas.\n\nOur three-hour crossing was relatively calm, although many of the local passengers spent most of the time being rather noisily “uncomfortable\" into plastic bags and other containers.\n\nThe first sight that greeted us at the dockside was a large banner in stirring Chinese characters, the sort that you always see in China extolling the virtues of this or that, or exhorting the people to even greater achievements. This one had an English translation that said something like: \"Make Dalian the successful tourist port with successful business and multifunction.\" I like to think that we lived up to this entreaty during our stay.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215693, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 470, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "423\n\nValery M. Garrett. Heaven is High, the Emperor Far Away, Merchants and Mandarins in Old Canton, Oxford University Press [Oxford University Press (China) Ltd., 2002] xiv, 210,\n\nMrs. Garrett has put a lot of loving effort into this book, and it shows.\n\nShe made many visits to Canton during its years of gestation, and the contents fully endorse her claim (Introduction, xiii) that \"instead of discovering that all had been swept away, I found that much had survived.' We are also in her debt for another reason. She has provided wealth of description from older works obtained during her searches in the second-hand and rare book market, many of them never reprinted, and hence scarce and expensive to buy, if you can find them! One such book is by the American, Osmond Tiffany Jr. (Boston, 1849), which has supplied the two little gems given on pages 79 (on the Parsee merchants of Canton) and 90 (on Chinese shopmen).\n\nThe result is a lively, informative, and very readable account of a City, once famous across the Four Seas, which has been long neglected and deserves to be again better known. No matter - as the author has felt obliged to add that a visit there is \"like an audience with a grand old lady who has had too many face-lifts\". She is still worth cultivating, for all that!\n\nThe long history of Canton is given in outline, but the focus is on its 18th and 19th centuries \"heyday,\" when the city was the only port on the long Chinese seaboard open to foreign trade: and as promised in the sub-title, here we have 'merchants and mandarins' superabundance, firmly set within the geographical, social, and historical context of their times.\n\nI liked the book's organization. Its three parts, with fourteen chapters and accompanying notes, together with an Introduction, cover the subject very neatly, whilst each chapter is long enough to impart adequate information, but not to the point when it becomes too much to handle.\n\nI also like the illustrations, especially the three sections in colour. All very well reproduced and including some that (I predict) many", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]