[ { "id": 204355, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch \n\nORASHKB and author \n\nVol. 1 (1961) \n\nISSN 1991-7295 \n\n119 \n\nAt the cemetery, the coffin is normally lowered into the grave without further ceremony and the hole filled. Just before the hole is filled, it is customary for each member of the family present to throw in a handful of earth. After filling, two candles are usually lit and placed near the head of the grave and three incense-sticks nearer the foot. Sometimes, absent members of the family may depute other relatives to set out candles and incense-sticks on their behalf, in which case the proportions are still observed. An offering of oranges may be peeled and placed on the grave, together with paper money. Finally, crackers are let off.\n\nOccasionally, after the coffin has been lowered and before the earth is thrown in, a male descendant present will make a cut in a live cock so that blood flows out. The cock will then be held over the grave to allow its blood to drop on the coffin and sides of the hole, in the traditional hope that the breeding properties of the cock will be transmitted to the deceased. Provided that the deceased is over middle age, sex normally makes no difference. A more modern version of this practice omits the incision on the cock, which is simply swung over the hole on the end of a piece of string.\n\nThe last rites sometimes involve the assistance of Taoist or Buddhist monks, even though neither the relatives nor the deceased may necessarily profess complete belief in either of those religions. The monks normally appear in a team of five: the leader with the other four ranged in pairs. Their form of service usually follows the pattern of Taoist and Buddhist chanting, accompanied by music, the striking of bells, small brass ringing bowls and wooden sound-boxes (muk ue). In major funerals, where the body is held elsewhere than in a funeral parlour, the last rites may continue for seven full days before burial, with further services every 7th day for a total of forty-nine days. If expense proves too much, some of the weekly services may be omitted but it is customary to include the 5th one, when married daughters and granddaughters are expected to contribute either wholly or in part; the final service is also required. At these weekly rites, the next-of-kin may sometimes cook rice and beans (red or green) which are then eaten by relatives in the hope of attaining long life (chuc shaû faân).\n\nAnother custom still often encountered is the placing of several pairs of trousers on the deceased, whether male or female. Half a dozen pairs of trousers is not uncommon.\n\nBased on a pun between the Cantonese foò (\"trousers\") and foò (“riches\"), the object is to provide wealth for the spirit of the deceased. Including jacket and underwear, an even number of garments is normally placed on a male; an odd number on a female,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209818, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "55\n\nwhich a piece of red paper is attached with the characters (*19**) are erected in the shape of a doorway, i.e., two uprights and one crosspiece. No feast or celebration is required.\n\n(e) \"Sheung leung\" (#) is the more important ceremony and involves the erection of the main ridge-pole of the roof. Several days before the actual ceremony, two unpainted wooden uprights are set up on the building site. On the lucky day chosen, a red painted beam which is traditionally of China fir is placed between two tables or stools. The applicant and his family will worship the centre of the beam, praying for prosperity within the new house. The youths of the village, most of whom will already be assembled, are then invited to hoist the beam up to the uprights and to lash it on. Meanwhile, drums and gongs will be beaten. When the beam is erected, red string will be used to attach the following to it: a piece of red cloth; some small taros (a big taro has many small ones round it), symbolising a mother with many children; two small bags of red cloth, one containing kuk and the other mai* (representing riches in much rice); a red bamboo sieve (the numerous holes represent mouths of a large family); two bundles of red chopsticks (the Cantonese faai chi for chopsticks is punned into faai chi, meaning quick sons); several onions (Cantonese chung is punned into chung meng meaning clever); several garlic bulbs (Cantonese suen tau is punned into, meaning ingenious); one pair of black trousers (Cantonese foo is punned into foo kwai †, meaning rich); two paper lanterns (Cantonese tang is punned into tim ting, meaning getting a son). A feast is then held, to which the applicant invites clansmen, friends and relatives, and specially baked cakes are distributed to children. In due course, the remainder of the house is built round the beam. The various articles attached to it are left hanging, except that for some reason the pair of black trousers is usually detached.\n\n(f) Tin Kei () represents digging the foundations. A small channel is first dug to one side of the building site and a number of stones or bricks are placed on top of each other inside the channel,\n\n(g) When the house is completed, a form of house-warming is held. Two red painted rice measures (tau) are filled, one", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212577, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "111\n\nwas especially fond of like homemade, western-style cookies. There were traditional offerings such as roast duck, rice wine, fruit, cakes, cooked vegetarian food and chopsticks. Ancestors must be provided with sustenance. Even with Christian services food is still sometimes 'offered up' on the altar, for example for 'divided families'. Although not all mourners approved, because the deceased enjoyed smoking, cigarettes were placed on the altar. During the proceedings a butt was found in an ash tray which some were convinced had actually been smoked by the dead woman. Objects once placed on the altar should not be touched.\n\nAlthough the deceased was a humble housewife, 37 suit lengths and blankets were draped on special fixtures around interior walls of the hall. These practical gifts from friends were overlaid with gold, red or white paper characters proclaiming slogans such as:\n\n'Everlasting life in heavenly kingdom'; and another, 'Picture of her will live in minds of women',\n\nThere were 114 wreaths, many on eight-foot or so high bamboo frames each with a banner, sometimes black with white characters, giving names of donors and slogans. The family cobler who owned a small street stall sent a wreath. Immediately after the ceremony these bamboo frames were appropriated by outsiders and reused for making wreaths for other funerals.\n\nAfter encoffining, the body, lying in state with face heavily made up and looking peaceful, was placed behind a glass partition in a small adjoining 'farewell room' off the back of the hall. So that a person is in the 'mainstream' it is necessary the body be positioned in the centre of the coffin. The air was oppressive with candle smoke and incense, one of the main ingredients of the latter being sandal wood.\"\n\nThe deceased wore four dresses and three pairs of trousers (for a man it would have been four and four). With \"foo\" being a homophone for both 'riches' and 'trousers', an odd number of pairs are worn by females and an even number by males. No fur, leather or rubber are used for fear of reincarnation as an animal. The feet are tied together with hemp cord supposedly to prevent jumping if tormented by ghosts. Feet of corpses in England are also bound, to keep them together before rigor mortis sets in, when a body is ‘laid out'. This seems a more plausible reason.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215725, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 24, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "Peter Stuckey and Chris Bailey - Visiting St. John's Island\n\nDan Waters - Projects and enquiries ........\n\n435\n\n449\n\nDan Waters - Yet more thoughts on Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing: Conduit Road and its environs\n\n453\n\nJohn Wilson - A poem from the HKBRAS visit to East Bhutan, February 2003......\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\n459\n\nPeter Halliday - Voices from the past: Hong Kong, 1842-1918 (Solomon Bard)\n\n467\n\nPeter Halliday - The development of education in Hong Kong, 1841-1897 (Gillian Bickley)\n\n468\n\nPatrick Hase - The fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation (Philip Snow)\n\n472\n\nJames Hayes - From rice to riches: A personal journey through a changing China (Jane Hutcheon)....\n\n474\n\nXV", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216239, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 538, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "472\n\nlacking in balance and discrimination: luckily, this is not true of the vital central three-quarters of the book. But readers should beware of the lack of balance in these two sections.\n\nThere are a few other minor flaws as well. Thus, while, of the two main Hong Kong Chinese-language newspapers, one is spoken of as the Wah Kiu Yat Po, the other is spoken of as the Xing Dao Ribao (Star Isle Daily), thus disguising (very effectively) the Sing Tao. It is difficult to discern any pattern here. There are also a few errors of fact, particularly in the first and last chapters. Thus, inter alia, nowhere near 20,000 villagers were displaced for the Japanese extension of the Airport - there were no more than a tenth of that number living in Po Kong, Sha Tei Yuen, and Kak Hang. The demolished tenements in the Kowloon City area in the 1930s were not inside the Walled City, but outside, in the Kowloon Market area. Sir Thomas Jackson was not the founder of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank (1864): he was its General Manager from 1876-1902.\n\nThese flaws, however, are minor, in comparison with the immense value and interest of the bulk of the book. It is, despite the flaws, confidently and wholeheartedly recommended to anyone interested in the history of Hong Kong.\n\nPATRICK H. HASE\n\nJane Hutcheon, From Rice to Riches, A personal journey through a changing China Sydney, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2003.\n\nThis book delivers. Its coverage is broad but deep, it has the right mix of passion and detachment, with impish but biting humour, and is quietly but cleverly constructed by the author who, for five years from 1995, was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's correspondent in China.\n\nThe author is well-suited to her task. A “China-coast\" background on both sides of her family over several generations, her Hong Kong birth and upbringing, her family's devotion to journalism, plus a genuine interest in China and its people, combine with her own independent and questing spirit to make this a memorable account of their recent and current history. It is, indeed, a tale of 'China's wrestle with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]