[ { "id": 204628, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "96 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\npopularity with businessmen and others, and of the degree of wealth and general prosperity there in the middle of the last century: since district associations, like present day Kaifong in the urban area, can only operate effectively (and, indeed, come into existence) inside a community which possesses prosperous elements. The district associations must also have been a useful counterpoise to the political dominance of the WONG Wai Chak Tong. \n\nThe association for natives of Tung Kwun is the largest, richest and probably the oldest of the Cheung Chau societies. It seems to have been established in the fifth year of Chia-ch'ing (1800-01) and in 1898 owned five shops, office premises and an ancestral hall which had been in existence for at least forty years, judging by an incense holder dated the ninth year of Hsien-feng (1859-60). Members and destitute persons of Tung Kwun origin could receive relief assistance from its funds and contributions, with which the Po On study, the ancestral temple, and later three large communal urn graves were also managed. Practically all the way from the cradle to the grave the member and his children could benefit from the operation of his association.26 \n\nThe association laid emphasis on social cohesion and the observance by its members of the customary proprieties. There was the traditional feast for all members every year at the lantern festival on the fifteenth day of the first moon, on which day the managers for the new year were elected, and the yearly worship of Kwan Tai, the god of war and patron god of the association, on his birthday on the thirteenth day of the fifth moon, when each subscribing member received a share of roast pork. Confucius' birthday and the two grave sweeping festivals were also celebrated by members gathering together. \n\nOther commemorative tablets existed until only a few years ago which would have provided useful information about two other similar associations of long standing; those of people from Wai Chau and Chiu Chau (combined) and from 惠州及潮州 Sei Yap. One in the Wai Chiu clansmen's office was turned out 27 during repairs after Typhoon Mary in 1960 and not replaced; and what was probably the foundation stone of the Yik Sin Tong, an association for Sei Yap natives, was taken down and \n\nT \n\nJ \n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204796, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "FENG CHAU\n\n87\n\nChinese New Year, were accustomed to visit their parent villages, which were in any case not far away. However, there seem in mid-century to have been close links with the Tung Kwun association of Cheung Chau. Fifteen Peng Chau shops47 subscribed to the repair of the association's premises in 1866, and Peng Chau residents may have been members of the association, as is the case with several of the Cheung Chau district and other organisations today.\n\ntoday. The extent of the help given on that occasion may be attributed either to this, or else to some very energetic canvassing by the Cheung Chau organisers.48\n\nHowever, the gradual expansion of the local community did bring with it various manifestations of communal endeavour. There was an interesting building, now in ruins, known as the Yee Chee, which was a poor house rather on the lines of the Fong Pin Hospital at Cheung Chau. It was a substantial structure constructed from the dark grey-blue bricks of the region, and rather like a temple in appearance. There were three rooms: one for sick persons, one for the dying and one for the caretaker. There were idols inside, the principal one being that of the God of Ghosts. The Yee Chee is said to have been constructed by the island Kaifong from funds specially raised for the\n\n# purpose and was maintained by them as occasion required. It was intended for use by destitute persons in poor health and as a place where they could die in peace. No one with relatives able to support him would ever let himself be taken there. Free coffins were provided by the Kaifong. It was available to all, land and sea dwellers alike. The caretaker was supported by collections and was allowed to cultivate land under the control of the Kaifong. The building was not in particularly good repair when Mr. CHUNG was a boy, and its origin can therefore be dated with confidence to 1850 or before.\n\nThe Peng Chau Kaifong mentioned in the previous paragraph had premises on each side of the Tin Hau temple. They were renovated in 1876-77 about the same time as the temple. Present elders clearly recall a tablet in the office building to one side of the temple which said it was enlarged. The annexe on the other side served as a school or guest house as the need arose. It is not certain when the Kaifong began,50 but it appears to have existed before this office was repaired and it has been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205503, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "40\n\nzation\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY\n\nsometimes helped to integrate groups of neighbouring communities who would be encouraged to form associations to resist their disruptive activities.\n\nReligion, then, was often a means of fortifying existing groups of people with common interests or roles in the community. It also sometimes brought organized groups into being among those already having common interests but no other form of organization. In certain circumstances it gave rise to organizations contributing to the integration of whole communities: when all individual members of a community had a status or interest in common. Ancestor worship did so when all villagers were kinsmen; temple organization might do so when it could appeal to all members of the community as residents, for whom a particular god had significance. In both cases wealth and education were needed to bring such organization to its highest development and were themselves factors limiting control. In certain circumstances secret organizations might provide some form of village cohesion: either through a common interest in resisting them, or, when economic and social conditions reduced the differences among members of a community, through common membership of such bodies. This kind of integration would probably last only as long as the conditions reducing differences among the community members lasted.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 This paper was prepared originally for a seminar on micro-social organization on China held at Cornell University in October 1962 and sponsored by the Sub-committee on Chinese Society of the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council. It has been slightly abridged and rearranged by me for publication here. I have been limited in my use of published material to works available to me in Hong Kong. The research notes to which I refer were collected during field studies in Singapore during the years 1951-52 and 1954-55, and during the early 1960's in Hong Kong.\n\n2 See his Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (London, Athlone Press, 1958), and Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung (London, Athlone Press, 1966).\n\n3 See for example Hui-chen Wang Liu. \"An Analysis of Chinese Clan Rules: Confucian Theories in Action\", in Confucianism in Action, ed. David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1959) pp. 63-64.\n\n4 See his Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1960) p. 335.\n\n5 For example Hsiao, ibid., p. 329 and 359ff.\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "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": 206642, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "184\n\nd.\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nAn image in the form of Yin Ch'iao; with six arms, a blue face covered in spots like warts; two fangs, two banners, a bell, two swords and one arrow.\n\nPossible Misidentifications\n\nThe images of Yin Ch'iao/T'ai Sui can be confused with several deities who have similar characteristics. These are:\n\na. One version of the Fukienese god of actors, Tien T’o Yuan Shuai (*), is a standing general with a sword in his right hand and a hand bell in his left. He has or should have, however, a pink face, and his usual identifying characteristic, a crab painted over his mouth or his forehead.\n\nb. In a Singapore Foochow clan temple of the Hsu (✯) family there is a seated general in armour, with a blue face and fangs, called Liu Chin Sheng Ho (Hr). He holds an axe in each hand and is prayed to for the good health of the clan and for the rapid recovery of the sick.\n\nc. Pu Tu Kung (#2) who releases souls from the Under-world during the seventh lunar month, is often shown as blue-faced and with two fang-like teeth showing. Normally, however, he does not carry anything in his two hands.\n\nd. One of the two attendants of Fa Chu Kung (✯È2) is a general with a sword raised in his left hand and a handbell held in his right. He wears a tiger's head hat and is called Hu Ye (A). He has a pink face and a black beard.\n\nAn image of the Golden Youth (✯✯), one of the assistants to Kuan Yin, could be mistaken under certain conditions with the manifestations of T'ai Sui as a seated youth with the scroll. The Golden Youth has a similar seated pose, the same style head and hair but normally holds a fly whisk in the right hand. If this is lost the image looks at first glance like a T'ai Sui without a scroll.\n\nThe Indian Buddhist deity of death, Mara, could understandably be mistaken for T'ai Sui, Mara (A) in his Chinese form normally has a greenish hue, has a frightful face with two tusk-like teeth, holds a bell in his right hand, but has bare feet, is bare to the waist and wears a fur skirt. He is usually accompanied by two demon attendants, one black and one white, who are the Yamen runners, the Wu Ch'ang Kuei (❀❀Ą), who collect the souls of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206653, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n195\n\nto stay; and as no disaster befell either the town or those who remained, Cheng Ho's reputation was further enhanced.\n\nIn the more serious lawsuits amongst Chinese in Semarang, Chinese witnesses may be required to take their oaths before Cheng Ho's statue and, before his altar, to \"drink the ashes\" from the incense urn mixed with water.\n\nIn the Philippines one Chinese culture hero called Pun Tou Kung () is venerated by both the Hakka and Ch'aochow (Teochew) emigrants. In the Philippines he is said to have been a crew member on one of the voyages of Cheng Ho. He went ashore at Jolo, where he died, and his grave, now a place of miracles, is where he is prayed to for protection. During the shelling of Jolo by the Spanish naval forces in the late nineteenth century the preservation of the Chinese quarter of the town was ascribed to his protective powers. Another version is that he landed at Jolo from Cheng Ho's fleet, remained there, raised a large family and now the majority of the Chinese in the area are descended from him.\n\nThis same Pun Tou Kung is worshipped under various names in most places in South East Asia by emigrant Chinese as a god of wealth. In most places in Malaya and Singapore he is called Tai Po Kung (62) and is believed to be a former tin miner. In Thailand he is also called Pan To Kung (2).\n\nDeity titles likely to be confused with Cheng Ho\n\nCheng Ho's title should not be confused with the titles of the Buddhist trinity, San Pao (E) and San Pao Ye (T); with another Chinese protective deity San Pao Kung Kung (222); nor with San Pao T'a Shen (TAP).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "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": 207544, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 312, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "304\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\npatrons of musicians and sketched them without either crab decorations or the dog. The main brother was shown holding a fan in each hand whilst the other two stood beside him with two attendants. Later in this Note, you will see that one of Chief Marshal T'ien's titles is Wu Tai Yuan Shuai. Père Doré described Wu Tai separately and sketched him as a young man with green twigs behind the ears, a large crab on his forehead, a tiny Taoist crown on his bald head and dressed in loose-fitting robes. Wu Tai, according to Doré, was accompanied by two male and two female attendants. This would appear to be the southern provinces' temple version which Doré did not realize was a manifestation of Marshal T'ien.\n\nThere are, as one would expect, many variations in characteristics in Ch'aochow and Fukienese carvings. For instance, occasionally he is represented as bald, or the front of his hair is shaven in Ch'ing fashion making him half-bald; in others he has a long queue or two long pigtails; sometimes he wears a military helmet or a scholar's cap, and in some images he has a black cock under his other foot. In several places he is represented as a youth standing on one foot with both arms raised in a dramatic, theatrical stance, and in others he is standing stolidly, with both feet together holding one or two swords. A sketch of T'ien To Yuan Shuai by a Singaporean Fukienese god carver depicted him with a red face, staring eyes and dressed in scholar's robes. (Plate 21). An actor, one of a company of Ch'aochow players in Bangkok, explained that they only had a tablet in their portable shrine, and that their image with only one crab painted on his forehead, was permanently in a temple. He told me that the single crab on the forehead meant that T'ien was the patron of actors, whereas others with the crab on the mouth represented the middle brother of the T'ien trio who is only prayed to for good health.\n\nIn one sighting in Ipoh, in North Malaya, Marshal T'ien was wearing armour, carried a sword and bell, but was barefoot and had a crab painted on his mouth. He was known to the temple priests to have been a vegetarian monk from Ch'aochow, insane as a child who had cured himself and is now worshipped for a similar cure by parents of the mentally sick. (Plate 22).\n\nAbove his image on a small backstage altar of a Foochow opera troupe in Singapore, was the carved inscription ‘Ministry of Wind", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207551, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 319, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n311\n\nFukienese communities but also on the Yangtze, possibly in at least two areas, and is not only the patron of most entertainers (musicians, boxers, wrestlers, actors etc.) but also has the secondary function as a health and fertility god, possibly performed by the middle brother.\n\nMersham, Kent, 10 February, 1975\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nCHANG YU-TANG AND AN OLD HANGING SCROLL FROM CHEUNG CHAU\n\nThis note relates to an interesting local figure and Kwangtung worthy. It is thought that readers will be interested both in the content and style of writing of such literary pieces.\n\nIt is not known where the following material (First and Second Accounts) was obtained, nor why there should be two similar pieces in the Hong Kong Wai Chau General Association Bulletin. There are no biographies of Yu-tang in the Kwei Shin district gazetteer (last edition seems to be Ch'ien Lung 48, which is, of course, too early) nor in the Kuang Hsü 7 edition of the Wai Chau prefectural gazetteer, the most likely sources for biographical aid. (Information supplied by Mr. Arthur Lai Shue-tim of the Chinese Library, University of Hong Kong, who kindly checked them at our request).\n\nFIRST ACCOUNT [translated from the Chinese of p. 109 of the Hong Kong Wai Chau General Association Bulletin, 1964 by Francis Sham Shui-yu].\n\nGen. Cheung Yuk-tong* was appointed as the Kowloon Deputy Garrison Commander at Taipang (A). Under his charge, the inhabitants along the coasts enjoyed security and peace. Later when the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula was ceded to Britain as a colony [in 1860] he contributed immensely to establishing the demarcation line which forms the Boundary Street of today. The relics in connection with him which are partially left behind are what is called the \"Spare-the Waste-Paper Pavilion” (***) as well as his fist-writing (*) of Chinese calligraphy. One can hardly refrain from sighing with admiration whenever we think upon the historical relics.\n\n* Cantonese romanization.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "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": 208065, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "88 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\nof a better place. In most temples he stands slightly off to one side from the middle of the Under Altar behind the incense pot. The same God Carver explained that the other, similar image in the Under Altar, is the Black and White Demon (). He too is standing, dressed in sackcloth and has his tongue protruding. He has a black face, the same four characters down the front of his dunce's cap. He too, holds the wand with its tattered decoration which he uses to lead souls safely into the Afterworld and before the Judges of Purgatory. He is sometimes known as \"The one who leads the souls\" (). The usual image, the Local Wealth God who is occasionally known as the Filial son (#7) according to the Macanese carver, is taller, stands in sackcloth, but with a white face and wearing a dunce's cap without characters.\n\nThis statement by a man who is at the heart of image making and whose other statements have been well borne out by temple keepers in both Hong Kong and Macau, has thrown a cat amongst the pigeons, as a careful examination of Under Altars reveals that very few images have black faces or characterless caps. All, with and without characters and with black or white faces, are referred to without exception by the individual temple keepers as the Local Wealth God. They added, however, that they may also be called by the less polite and now old-fashioned title of Wu Ch'ang Kuei, the \"Unpredictable Demon\" (), a term Burkhardt1 consistently used for the demonic policeman who arrests souls.\n\nThe same God Carver also explained that the Wu Ch'ang Kuei quite frequently has red tears running down his face because, apparently, as a youth he so got on his Mother's nerves that she cried herself to death. Covered by remorse and crying until he drew blood, he set himself the task of guiding first her soul, and then souls of others, safely into the through the Underworld.\n\nThe primary function of the Local Wealth God, according to the majority of temple keepers concerned, is to provide unexpected money (always in small quantities), and particularly for luck in gambling, especially horse racing. He is prayed to by gamblers who are going through a lengthy and damaging run of bad luck. In addition to this well-known ability to provide small quantities of unexpected money, a few temple keepers understand that, dressed in hemp, he has the power to drive away sickness demons and, if \n\n(1) V. R. Burkhardt: Chinese Creeds and Customs: Vols. 1-3. 1952-5 Hong Kong (SCMP).", "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": 208067, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "90\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\nand in another temple with a carved wooden coiled snake in the middle of the group. In one Macau temple four of the Five Demons have very cheeky, European children's faces. This is because the original heads of the images had been so badly burnt by candle and incense heat that the temple keeper had substituted European doll's heads.\n\nApart from the background sheet of titles and the image of the Local Wealth God and those of the Five Demons already described, there are some five other items and images which may feature in Under Altars. As with every temple disposition there does not appear to be any firm rule as to where or how each image or item should be placed within the altar.\n\nThere are many conventions, but none without the exception. The first group of items consists of wooden or stone images of living animals or creatures, the most popular being cockerels, dogs and snakes. No keeper was prepared to say why these creatures are depicted.\n\nSecondly, there are several Gods whose images are seen in Under Altars in addition to being on normal altars. The most popular and easily the most common of these is Marshal Chao, a Wealth God who is also called the \"Marshal of the Dark Altar,\" Hsuan T'an Chao Kung-ming Yuan Shuai (#). Chao's image is relatively standard, and was very common in temples throughout China. He is a ferocious general, seated astride or seated with a foot on a tiger; or standing on a tiger; with his right hand raised holding a magic whip (a knobbly-bladed sword). He was spotted on one occasion in one temple only with a long folded white strip of paper and a short strip of hessian laid across his head. We will briefly refer again to Chao. Others include Tzu Wei Hsing Chun (***), The Star God of the Planet Venus, and Hua Fen Fu Jen (✯✯✯A), the Powder Maiden (who preserves a girl's beauty). The face of the latter image is coated with cosmetic powder by young girls and she is frequently bedecked with strings of imitation pearls as offerings. The connexion between the Powder Maiden and the rest of the altar escapes explanation, and the answer from temple keepers has been that it is simply custom. There are also numerous other unidentified individual images unconnected with the altar which have been placed there by ignorant temple keepers or worshippers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208068, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n91\n\nThirdly, there is the incense pot, in dull bronze, pewter, or earthenware pottery, besides which one or more small oil lamps stand with their tiny wicks lying across the bowl of oil smudged with soot.\n\nFourth, there is a flower vase in which real or imitation flowers are placed by worshippers.\n\nFifth and finally, there may be a wooden tablet to the \"Five types of Terrain and the Five Directions”, (£) standing at the back, which will be referred to later in greater detail.\n\nThere are two deities who are so often seen in or near the Under Altar that they really must be described here. Only one is connected by title, and both may be seen just as frequently on the altar above the Under Altar, on a separate altar or, divorced completely from everything else, down one side wall of the temple. The first is the White Tiger (), who is sometimes referred to as the White Tiger of the Dark Altar (6). The second is the Green Horse.\n\nThe White Tiger\n\nHe is to be seen in about half of the Under Altars in Hong Kong and Macau. In most temples he is made of stone, though occasionally of paper or wood. Sometimes he crouches at ground level, obliquely, on the opposite side of the altar to the Local Wealth God or elsewhere in the temple on the floor and on the altar. He may even be seen in groups of twos or threes, or even more, in very rare sightings.\n\nHe is one of the most common of animal spirits in folk religion temples of all communities and, not surprisingly, is often black having been kippered in incense smoke, though one or two manage to retain their yellow and black stripes and look just as all good tigers should. White Tigers, who are not really white at all, are mostly poorly shaped lumps of stone with a tail, tiny ears and a cavernous mouth. The largest number seen together in an Under Altar was seven, but even that number did not look incongruous as one big one was surrounded by what seemed, at first glance, to be six kittens.\n\nWhite Tigers are fierce and must not be offended. Should you offend one he causes a sickness of the chest or stomach called", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208069, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "92\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\n\"White Tiger Disease\" which cannot be diagnosed further, and which can only be cured by offering him expensive propitiation.\n\nThe White Tiger's full title is \"The White Tiger of the Black Altar\" but even though the Wealth God, Hsuan T'an (literally “Black Altar\" and whose name, as we saw above is Chao Kung-ming) is always accompanied by a tiger, no temple keeper has had the courage of his convictions to connect the White Tiger with him, although the connexion seems obvious enough.\n\nWhite Tigers fight evil, destroy demons—particularly sickness demons—and, more mundanely, prevent squabbles and strife between women. Though many temple keepers spoke confidently, they tended to connect the attributes of any one deity with others on the same altar, thus claiming that White Tigers are prayed to stop scandal and rumours, and also prayed to by gamblers who are having a run of bad luck. In former days, so several temple keepers claimed, ritual purification before worshipping the Gods was carried out at the White Tiger Altar, as he was a stellar deity who warded off baneful influences.\n\nOn the day of the Excited Insects, (the 17th of the 1st lunar month, one month before Ch'ing Ming), White Tigers are propitiated by temple-goers, who crowd around them force-feeding them with delicacies known to delight them. These include raw eggs still in their shells, which are rammed willy-nilly into the tiger's mouth together with lumps of white cooked fatty pork, raw liver, chick peas and silver coins. Pork fat is a delicacy beloved of tigers who, according to temple keepers, will not eat beef or fish! One particularly stomach-churning sight was of a temple keeper pushing his fingers into the Tiger's mouth through the mush of raw egg, liver, paper, shell and fatty pork, to recover the coins. For the very poor, a mere smear of pork fat on the lips of the White Tiger is sufficient to bring his aid. Elderly ladies also offer oranges, minute packets of tea and three sticks of incense before the Tiger.\n\nAt the same ceremony devotees burn, or again thrust into the mouths of the White Tigers, dozens of tiny printed paper tigers with yellow and black stripes, folded in half lengthways and filled with cold cooked rice, slivers of raw liver and a few peas. Some of the elderly ladies took the paper tiger cut-outs and removing a shoe walloped the tiny paper tiger unmercifully. Such chastisement is to ensure that gossips and trouble from demonic sources do not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208070, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n93\n\nenter the homes of the beater and her family. (Incidentally, they did the same with the \"small people\" a common man (Hsiao Jen A) who are gossips causing untold trouble. They are depicted on a black-printed charm as a row of men, and represent anyone who bears a grudge or gossips about their neighbours.)\n\nThough Ch'ao Chow and Hoklo temples have no Under Altars, keepers in temples used by these communities claim that other unspecified Hoklo and Ch'ao Chow temples do have them. In practice, however, most have a stone White Tiger, blackened with age, crouching on the floor in front of one of the secondary altars. In one Ch'ao Chow temple, what at first glance could be confusing, were two large and untarnished black and yellow striped tigers seated before the temple's Earth God. According to the watchman, they were normal tigers and not White Tigers, awaiting his orders.\n\nThe Green Horse\n\nThe second is the Green Horse (*) who occasionally has a groom though, rarely, a rider. Not surprisingly the horse actually is green, although it is possibly called so because Liu (green) is a homophone for \"lucky\". In a few temples he is colloquially referred to as the \"Money Horse\". He is to be found in several temples where there is no Under Altar, no White Tiger, and no Local Wealth God. Green Horse stand on their own four legs and are seldom made of a permanent material, though two in Macau and one in Hong Kong are made of what appears to be painted concrete about half life size. Most are coloured paper pasted over a bamboo frame, frequently decorated with tall, gold paper floral crowns and red rosettes.\n\nThe Green Horse is variously offered prayers and incense for assistance in keeping in touch with distant relatives, for bearing petitions to unapproachable Gods, for stopping quarrels and rumours and, according to some, for wealth. Some even refer to the Green Horse as the Protector of Women. Many Green Horses seen in temples are heavily ensnared or trussed with long, fine red (or on very rare occasions, white) cords bound around the forelegs. Occasionally pairs of red chopsticks are bound to the Horse by these red cords. Both the chopsticks and the cords are charms, placed there by wives who pray that their travelling or erring husbands will be faithful to them, or return immediately to them leaving the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208072, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n95\n\nGod of Loyalty and patron of businessmen, soldiers, detectives and firemen. When represented, this stands near the entrance to his temple and is held on a short rein by a standing groom. The second is the paper horse used for carrying messages to the dead ancestors during the Yu Lan festival (15th of the seventh lunar month). These white or red horses look very similar to the Green Horse and are burnt during ancestral rituals. The third is the White Horse of the monk Hsuan Chuang, Tripitaka, who brought the Buddhist Sutras back from India in the 7th Century, and is only to be seen in one temple in Macau and not at all in Hong Kong.\n\nAn interesting observation which would appear to have no special significance, and one which surprised many Chinese temple keepers, is the sighting of the Green Horse on the altar of the maids and attendants of Chin Hua, the Goddess of Childbirth, in some thirteen temples.\n\nOfferings, Charms and Messages\n\nApart from the force feeding of the White Tigers at the festival in Spring, an offering of a large slab of cooked fatty pork is frequently placed on the Tiger's head, and sometimes several ounces of Chinese yellow wine is then poured over it. Charms, printed on yellow or red paper, are pinned to the Local Wealth God and incense and candles are burnt before the whole Under Altar. Offerings of paper money on the \"Bank of Hell\" are piled onto some Local Wealth Gods, as are paper taels of gold and silver. On occasions particular to the individual devotee and connected with calamities in their lives, he or she may place five yellow paper charms, purchased from the temple keeper, beneath each of five oil lamp saucers with glowing wicks. These, together with fresh eggs, are offered to the spirits in the Under Altar.\n\nIndividual devotees who wish to report their particular misfortune to the Disaster Spirits obtain slips of paper from the temple keeper. These are normally some four inches long and two inches wide, in either red or green, with a regular pattern of diamonds and circles cut out by folding and snipping in a special way. In a few cases, temple keepers require details of the \"disaster\" to be written on them, with dates and names of the people involved. The slips of paper are then burnt in the temple incinerator. In rare cases where devotees confuse the message papers with charms, they are", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208073, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 112, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "96 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\npasted up on the upper lintel of the altar, or across the sides, where they remain until Spring-cleaning, or just drop off with time. They are called petitions, Pang (#). Another form of charm connected with the Green Horse is a simple postcard-sized piece of rice paper, block-printed in three colours, depicting a galloping green horse and his groom, on which is the petition (****). This is only used during the lunar New Year and, too, is burnt. One temple keeper very carefully folded such a paper inside a piece of red paper, producing a package no larger than a cigarette, ready for devotees to burn. \n\nOccasionally, green and red paper cut-outs are pasted on the Under Altar, or tied to the Green Horse's nose, head or back. These are said to represent \"messages\" from humans to the Gods asking for general benefits, and passed directly on by the Green Horse without going through a spirit medium or being dispatched by incineration. These \"messages\" without inscription are entrusted to the Green Horse at all times of the year. Although borne aloft to the Gods by the Green Horse, he is never expected to bring back a reply; the general benefits doubtless will manifest themselves in time. \n\nPaper charms obtained from the temple keepers, bearing printed prayers and pictures begging the Gods for safety, protection and blessings, are thrust into the belt or hands of the Local Wealth God or again tied to the back of the Green Horse. \n\nThe slips themselves go under the generic title for red ones of \"the Nobleman\", and for green ones of “Green Horse\". These are also regarded by many as charms to ward off demonic influence and not as messages, and are therefore pasted on certain altars and figures. \n\nOccasionally street shrines, such as the one on the corner on Taipingshan Street and Pound Lane, dedicated to the local Earth God (), have a further role as an Under Altar. The roof of the shrine and wall above it are heavily coated in red and green Green Horse and Nobleman slips which normally should be burnt. Many of the slips of paper are, in this case, pasted over the top of white or black cut-out papers which represent the Mean Ones, the Hsiao Jen. These appear in two forms; as individual human figures with large ears in black paper, and as white or black cut-out slips which look like carnival masks for a man with five eyes!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208074, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n97\n\nWhen the Mean One's slips are pasted up they are promptly beaten with a shoe or slipper, and then, over them, are pasted the red and green slips representing the control exercised over them by the Green Horse and the Nobleman.\n\nOne form of the charm is a green paper cut-out horse about 24 inches long, mounted by a separate piece of red paper, cut out in the stylised form of a man. These are pasted in shrines to control the Mean Ones.\n\nOne word of warning for the iconographer. Confusion may arise in temples of Overseas Chinese communities beyond the shores of Hong Kong and Macau, particularly in Fukienese temples in SE Asia. In these there is no Under Altar as such, except in Cantonese communities in places like Kuala Lumpur. There is a separate altar which has no special title, on which there are two or more images whose general features are very similar to the Local Wealth God. They wear dunce's caps, have gaunt faces with protruding tongues and carry a fan each. In addition they carry either a chain and padlock, or a tablet permitting them to carry out an official arrest. These are the lictors of the City God whose task it is to arrest the souls of humans when the ill-fated day of death arrives, and then drag the soul before the Judges of the Underworld. Usually, one of the two images is a short man and the other, very similar to the Local Wealth God, is a tall man. The Cantonese do not appear to hold them in awe as do the Fukienese, and only depict these lictors on murals, paintings and sketches of the courts and punishments of the Underworld. Incidentally, in Yunnan, the demonic lictor of the City God was known as the \"Chicken Foot Demon\", because down to his knees he was as described, \"gaunt, with dunce's cap etc,\" but below his knees were two enormous chicken's claws. On the altar of these lictors in Fukienese temples one may see the occasional White Tiger and, very rarely indeed, a Green Horse. More frequently, the small image of Chao, the Wealth God Hsuan T'an can be seen astride or beside his tiger.\n\nOne exception to the latter is interesting. In Stone Nullah Lane in Hong Kong a larger than life image of Chao Kung-ming stands with three other deities before the main altar. Beside him is a minute tiger, the size of a kitten. The image of Chao is the only one in Hong Kong temples which is coated with red and green", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208075, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "98\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\ncharm papers, some new, but mostly faded and tattered. The temple keeper said that supplicants had stuck these on to ward off demonic influences, each being a plea to Chao to order his tiger to devour baneful demons. This image is not in the Disaster Altar but its function is exactly as though it were. According to the temple keeper it is an old image, pre-1840.\n\nThe cut-out red and green charms, called Green Horse and Nobleman, should not be confused with yet other red paper charms with cut-out holes in them, which are pasted annually on lintels of altars, temple doorways and shrines, thus reconsecrating them. These are called slips (piao) (*) and come in three sizes, small, medium and large (1-✯✯). Most of them bear a small square of gold paper pasted on them.\n\nAlthough only Taoist popular religion temples have Under Altars, there is also a Buddha who comforts “in time of calamity”, Yao Shih Fo (***) (whose full title includes the phrase “disaster” “Hsiao Tsai Yen Shou” (5* £**). He never appears in Under Altars.\n\nAnother \"Under Altar\"\n\nAnother small inset Under Altar at ground level, which is nearly always central under the main altar, is the altar to the tutelary deity of the temple, Ti Chu Fang (H). It is often called the Prosperity Hall and is unconnected with our study. It consists of a tiny open fronted \"box”, lined with red or orange paper, containing only one or two small red plaques dedicated to the tutelary deity (£* 五土龍神;護廟地主財神),(五方五土地主財神) or (前後地主 神財).\n\nIn one temple only, in Wanchai, a second altar under yet another side altar, contains a large image of the local Earth God (No2) which is normally on a side altar or beside the temple entrance. Behind him is pasted an orange paper bearing black characters describing the Earth God as the Controller of Wealth, and naming in a parallel row of characters the other major Cantonese Wealth God \"Ts'ai Po Hsing Chun\" (# $ £*) who is not represented by an image in this instance. This is a rogue disposition, doubtless ordered by a well-meaning but ignorant temple committee.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208260, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 299, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "散禍\n\nPlate No. 31. The God of Wealth, from a temple in Macau", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208338, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "46\n\nKEITII STEVENS\n\nMu. The whole is best known as a Taoist Heaven (*). The temple at its peak bears the title of Fan Ch'ih Kung (£) \"The Palace of the Essence of Brahma\". The slip of paper in Tou Mu's back relates that Huang Wen-yuan, a sincere believer, born on the 27th day, 11th moon of the Year i wei (about December, 1835), residing south of Lu Ling City, Chi An Prefecture, Kiangsi Province, together with the whole of his family, on a lucky day of the 9th moon, of the Year keng wu during the Tung Ch'ih reign (about October, 1870), prayed before Tou Mu stating, \"I respectfully implore Most Reverend Tou Mu, a heavenly Goddess of Sacred Virtue, having the immense brilliance of T'ien Hou, generosity, the magic powers of suppressing demons and spirits, and the ability to produce amulets and prescriptions for saving people with serious afflictions, to effectively respond to my earnest prayers and wishes, and wield her supernatural powers to protect all the members of my family and to increase not only the number of children but also all kinds of happiness and prosperity\".\n\nOf the score or so images, only three deities are categorically identifiable, Kuan Ti, Kuan Yin, and Chao Kung-ming, the deities of loyalty, mercy and wealth respectively. Two of the images seem to be local Earth Gods (+) (Plate 8). They are of a style very commonly seen but with what are probably provincial characteristics. They are seated old men, clutching a fly whisk by the end of its handle allowing the handle itself to rest along the forearm and the whiskers to hang from about the elbow. They have a \"shoe\" of gold in their left hand, long white beards, white eyebrows and white hair under a green floppy form of skull cap with their hair drawn up into a bun through a hole in the top of it. They are wearing long robes bound by a red belt tied in a bow at the front, and black shoes. A female carved in the same pose, holding a fly whisk in the same manner, and dressed in a floral robe but without the “shoe\" of gold, has unbound feet, and hair, without a cap, drawn into two short pigtails. She may perhaps, be the consort of the Earth God.\n\nA final image, unidentified, has a spectacular face (Plate 9). He is an unidentified monk, seated cross-legged on a bench and with the ends of his robes hanging beneath him concealing the bench. He holds a fly whisk in his right hand in the same manner as the Earth God and in his left hand he holds a rosary. He has the face of an elderly man but with the characteristics more frequently", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208339, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "ALTER IMAGES FROM HUNAN AND KIANGSI \n\n47 \n\nidentified as those of the long-face northern Chinese, with narrow almost closed eyes, a furrowed brow and a black pointed beard resting on his upper chest. \n\nThe rest of the images, all with empty back cavities, consisted of one man similar to the first above, six women seated, dressed in robes, with their right hand carefully holding the edge of their robes and their left hand concealed, similar to the second of the six images described above, and one other Kuan Yin with an empty cavity in her back.\" \n\nOne slip only of the seven suggests that the Yin family placed an image on a family altar of a standardised, impersonal image of a female named Jen (perhaps the deceased wife of Mr. Yin). Perhaps it was the practice to place such standardised images of deceased relatives on family altars in Hunan? Cantonese god carvers in Kowloon were all quite positive that such a custom is not observed in Hong Kong, nor in their memory was it performed in Kwang-tung province. Several said that they understood that the Fukienese, and in particular the people from around Amoy, customarily placed stylised ancestral figures of old men and women on personal altars but never on temple altars. They also said that there is the well-known custom of the Boat People of South China, of placing standardised images of all deceased members of the family on the family altar irrespective of the age at death. (See my article on \"Soul images and Gods of the Boat People\" in Arts of Asia, volume 7, Number 6, Nov/Dec 1977). \n\nRegrettably, Hunan was ill-served by foreign travellers and writers, particularly about its temples and gods, and so no collateral information would seem to be available. A photograph taken in the sixties in the entrance hall to Mao's birthplace near Chang-sha in Hunan province, shows the family altar, with Chao Kung-ming the wealth God and Kuan Yin both easily identifiable, the remainder being indistinguishable. None, however, look like the images described above. \n\nAn example of the Fukienese custom is the lady, Madam Hsieh (###), from a family household shrine in Singapore. The image, carved in 1931, some six inches high (see Plate 10) is again a standard, impersonal likeness of an elderly dowager. She is recognisable as an ancestral image by the white duck(?) under each of her bound feet. Otherwise, she is dressed in elaborate robes,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208486, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "194 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nare in rural areas. The major Sheng Gong cult temple in Taiwan is in Taiwan City, from which place his portable image is taken by sedan chair to other cult temples in the vicinity to renew the efficacy of the images there. Evidence of the presence of his cult has been seen, too, by the writer in Sarawak, Brunei and Indonesia, in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.\n\nSheng Gong is a comparatively little used short form for the local Fujian cult of Guang Ze Zun Wang (廣澤尊王) whose full personal name was Guo Zhong-fu (郭忠福) and who is equally well known as Guo Sheng Wang Gong (郭聖王公); hence the \"Sheng Gong.\" He has some half a dozen other titles but all with a very limited local use, apart from Bao An Zun Wang (保安尊王). This is occasionally included in the title of his temple (*\n\nas compared with the more popular title of the Phoenix Mountain Temple (鳳山寺). He should not be confused with another and entirely different Fujian local cult deity, Hui Ze Zun Wang(惠澤尊王)\n\nThe Saintly Guo's image is not difficult to recognise as it has certain characteristics which, whilst not individually unique, together identify him at a glance. He has a youthful, clean-shaven face; is seated dressed in robes over armour with his right foot raised parallel to the ground, pointing towards his left leg at knee height. His face is a dark red and he has protruding round eyes.\n\nThere are two images of the Saintly Guo in the one temple in North Point, Hong Kong. One is the main, large image swathed in embroidered robes donated by devotees, and the other is a small wooden carving on the main altar before and between Guo and his consort. Neither were easy to photograph, and therefore I have gone through some old photographs, the best of which is to be seen at illustration at the back of this volume.* In this photograph Guo is the main deity on the altar of a temple in Seremban, West Malaysia, flanked by two other images of another Fujian local cult, Fa Zhu Gong (法主公). Guo is prayed to for the usual blessings though in certain temples he is specifically looked upon as a healer of the sick, a protector of children and as a wealth god for businessmen. He is also the patron of those who bear the same surname as himself.\n\n* Plate 22.\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208733, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n(iv) by transformation of a ghost shrine into a temple. The author might have added one more group :\n\n163\n\n(v) construction of temples for deity statues washed up on Taiwan shores. Many cases of famous gods are mentioned\n\nin the literature and folk traditions. Once a temple is built, the cult may spread by virtue of the god's efficacy,\n\nIn fact, the author does not explain the initial stimulus why a cult becomes popular and a god efficacious. Cult-formation should be treated before 'genesis of temples'.\n\nChapter IV, \"Purity and Pollution, Life and Death” (pp. 136-188) is on the one hand easy to summarize, but on the other hand difficult to judge. It seems to me that the author has mixed together a great amount of factually correct observations with logically incoherent interpretations; in other words, this chapter suffers greatly from 'subtle distortions', due perhaps to his exclusively anthropological method, with neglect of philosophical analysis and especially of historical perspective.\n\nLet me first summarize the main ideas expressed in this chapter. First of all, the author states that the idea of yin and yang, with its ritual application of impure (or polluting) and pure, or of rituals for the dead and rituals for the living is \"probably the major theme which runs throughout the folk religion” (p. 136). Also important is the distinction and separation between private and public, family and community interests (p. 137).\n\nMan alive lives in a world between the two extremes: the yang world of the gods and the yin world of the ghosts (p. 138). He tries to increase his yang power, which generates wealth, offspring and longevity, but also tries to maintain the \"balance of the universe through his ritual actions in worshipping the spirits\" (p. 140). Because of the ritual separation of pure and polluted, no temple can offer services to all categories of spirits but tends to specialize its services for special groups. It seems that community temples tend to offer services for the benefit of the living: such are the ch'iu-p'ing-an, li-tou and chiao rituals, whereas rituals for the dead are performed in ancestral halls (chin-chu) and Buddhist temples (chin-r'a). However, the author clearly states that there is no \"exclusive association of Taoism with life-oriented services, or (of) Buddhist with death\" (p. 173).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208757, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN \n\n187 \n\nThis may at first appear as a tautology: all religions are naturally human. However, in contrast again with the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, in which God is seen as the Absolutely Holy and Transcendent One, the Chinese worshippers in the folk-religion conceive of their deities and relate to them in very human or humanistic terms. This can be explained in many different ways. One aspect is the magico-religious treatment of the gods, just mentioned, but there are several other angles to look at this complex phenomenon. The Chinese deities are often man-made: created by the people, and sometimes in the past appointed by the imperial government. Many gods and goddesses are actually apotheosized historical figures of special reputation or virtue who after their death proved to possess spiritual powers to assist the suffering people. There exists even the conception that the whole Chinese pantheon (not including the Buddhas-bodhisattvas) is modelled after the imperial government: they present a mirror-image of this world with the emperor — the Jade Emperor at the top. Underneath him are the various boards or ministries, the provincial governors, district and city officials down to the lowest rank of neighborhood inspectors. The humble Tu-ti-kung or Earth-spirits are thus the lowliest rank in the divine hierarchy. Gods and goddesses can be promoted or fired just like humans; in cases of mismanagement or misconduct they are sent into exile or otherwise punished. Man's imagination sees this whole spiritual world as operating by virtue of rules and relationships characteristic of his own this-worldly society. Perhaps the most striking manner to illustrate the humanity of the Chinese religion is that it is so evidently utilitarian. The gods and goddesses are worshipped by the people mainly and perhaps exclusively to obtain divine assistance in various difficult or important circumstances. These may be of individual significance or may relate to social concerns: family and community. But most often the blessings requested belong to the sphere of this life: health and wealth, fertility and progeny, position, success in business, cures of diseases (often in the past: epidemics) and overall protection against evil forces, evil spirits who threaten to destroy human happiness. Concern with the after-life may also be a motivation of religion, but then life after death is seen as a continuation of life on earth. The deceased are imagined to have the same needs as in this world: food, shelter and clothing are their most important concerns. Therefore, the ancestor cult is utilitarianistic in two ways: if it is not intend-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208771, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n201 \n\nIt would seem incongruous that Na T'o, a Muslim who would abhor idolatry, should be venerated by the Chinese and it would be interesting to know what the Malays themselves would think of such a practice; that is of course, assuming that they even know of his existence. The Chinese, however, see no incongruity in having a Muslim on their altar, and in some areas, particularly around Kluang, he is especially treated with the respect and constraints due to another religion. As a Muslim, he is never disturbed on a Friday and never offered pork. \n\nThe only other case so far noted of a Muslim appearing on a Chinese altar was heard from a Chinese from Sian who recalled a deity in North China, the Wei Wei Ts'ai Shen (✯✯1⁄2§i†), said to be the Mohammedan god of wealth, depicted dressed in a Tibetan high-crowned cap. Wei Wei, he thought, was probably derived from the Arabic, and, it was claimed that Muslim Chinese offered beef at his altar. Wei Wei however, is possibly a local variant of Hui Hui, the usual Chinese term for \"Moslem”. \n\nThe second cult is that of Miss Lin (✯✯✯) whose image is to be seen on Chinese temple altars only in Southern Thailand. Her legend explains all. Left alone by the death of her parents in her home village near Ch'aochou in Eastern Kwangtung province of South China, she followed her only living relative, her brother, down to a village near Songkla in the far south of Thailand where he worked in the fields. When she arrived she found to her disgust that her brother was just about to marry a Muslim girl and be converted to Islam. She attempted without avail to persuade him not to do either. A Chinese god carver in Bangkok added, with disgust, he even gave up eating pork! \n\nThe sister knew she could not live with her brother and his wife and in a desperate moment threw herself into the river Patani and drowned herself. The brother, despite being filled with remorse, to demonstrate that he, as a convert, was more devout than born believer, went ahead with his plan to build a mosque and even went as far as to bury his sister beside the site chosen for it. As the last brick was laid lightning struck and destroyed the mosque without harming the sister's grave. However, the brother refused to believe that it was divine retribution for his denial of his parent's gods. Twice more he built, and twice more lightning struck. Only then did he accept the message and renounce Islam. Realizing that his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208784, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 241, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "214\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe location of the first major incident was the wooded slope of a steep hillside covered with pine trees and shrubs which was held under forestry licence by the Tsing Yi Rural Committee on behalf of the island community. The occasion for it was the entry of a bulldozer in connection with site investigation surveys (by boring rigs) to this area, where engineering works were held up pending negotiations with the villagers for the removal of several villages.\n\nIn the event, an unauthorized entry was made without the knowledge of the supervising engineer or District Office land staff. The bulldozer made tracks some 300 yards long in several zig-zags across the front of the hill, to the imagined and claimed detriment of three old villages whose fung shui area it has long been. The bulldozer's tracks were approximately 8 feet wide and it had effectively knocked over trees, taken up shrubs and exposed red earth, as clearly shown in Plate 4.\n\nThe villagers were prompt in their response; not only to complain to the District Office, but also to take early action to reduce the harm thought to emanate from the uncovered earth scars across the hill face. They sent parties of people to the spot who quickly cut adjoining grass, shrubs and the lower branches of trees to cover up the red earth. This took place over much of the tracks (Plate 4). They also hired a geomancer from Kowloon who set up a shrine beside a major clan grave whose side had been closely skirted by the bulldozer (Plate 5). He also provided charms which were set beside the shrine, to avert any bad influences coming from the uncovered earth nearby (Plate 6). In their turn the villagers sent a man at early morning and dusk to light joss-sticks and candles, change the oil in the little lamps on the shrine, so as to try to ensure that harm was averted by showing devotion to the earth god and to the ancestors. This service was provided in turn by a certain class of men styled fuk chù (±) from each of the villages affected by the excavation. This term means elderly persons who are thought to have received blessings from the gods e.g. by having many sons and health in old age.\n\nThe District Office 'made amends' by paying for the expenses/labour costs of the remedial work, and for the cost of the ceremonial rites styled tun fu (#). The effect of the remedial work thus undertaken was estimated to last for 6 months, after which the process would be repeated.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208869, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\nen\n\n3\n\nThey have however continued in S.E. Asia and Taiwan; and in some of the remoter areas of Malaysia there are altars in temples, preserved and much the same as they were a hundred years ago.\n\nIt is often difficult to obtain a clear answer from devotees themselves whether a particular temple belongs to Daoism, Buddhism or popular religion because, in the main, devotees simply do not understand the question. The majority of Chinese are not concerned with legendary or historical explanations and, if remotely religious, claim to be Buddhist irrespective of which temple they visit or which deity they venerate. In a few temples it is quite obvious that the deities are all of one religion, either Buddhist or Daoist, but the altars in most temples bear a mixture of Buddhist, Daoist and folk religion images side by side on altars.\n\nCommon usage by both Buddhists and Daoists of temple titles and religious terms also tends to mislead. It is therefore unwise to ascribe, automatically, specific terms to Buddhism or Daoism, though a few have a generally accepted and common meaning. The majority of Buddhist temples for example, are called “Si” and Daoist “Guan”, with “Miao” a common term for either. However, Miao is also the common term for folk religion temples and for certain shrines. \"Tang,\" a usual term for Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, is also used for Daoist or clan ancestral halls and for certain Guan Yin temples. \"Dong\", a cave, is a Buddhist title very frequently used for squatter temples, suggesting perhaps that the immigrant founder liked to think of himself as a hermit.*\n\nWhereas Buddhist and Daoist temples and monasteries bear flowery titles, usually obscure religious phrases or names unconnected with the main deities, folk religion temples tend to be dedicated to one or a pair of specific deities, the main god or gods on the main altar, and his, her or their names or titles are cut in stone or painted over the entrance to the temple.9\n\nIn Hong Kong temple building tends to reflect the wealth of a community (unlike in India where it reflects the class of the devotees). There are large establishments where monks and priests live; smaller establishments with a resident or day-time only keeper; and non-residential structures, the smaller of which are usually referred to as shrines.\n\n→\n\n* The characters referred to in this paragraph are ...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208870, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 32, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "4\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nTemples and monasteries, despite their outward appearance are not always simple, self-contained religious units. Quite frequently they contain a number of major and minor deities, each with its special shrine or altar, hall or building.10 The original major deity may, for one of several reasons, be relegated to a secondary position and a new primary deity installed on the main altar. After some years and changes in abbots or temple keepers, the identity of certain deities, including surprisingly, major gods and goddesses, have been forgotten and, so as not to lose face, their identities are guessed at by temple staff, often wildly inaccurately.\n\nThere are several groups or complexes of folk religion temples in the two territories and to identify the number of individual temples on one particular site apart that is from where it is possible from reading the titles over the entrances-it is necessary to count the number of Earth Gods and Door Guardians in their niches inside the temple on the inside walls, usually opposite each other, facing across the various entrances. A single or pair of these deities is usually found in each individual temple within a complex of temples irrespective of how many entrances there are. The Wen Wu temple (or Man Mo in Cantonese) in Hollywood Road, Hong Kong is an example, with two temples side by side seeming to be one having only one courtyard. The Wen Wu itself, a large traditional temple, is to the east with its Door Official and Earth God sitting side by side in one shrine. In the smaller \"Temple of the Buddha of Light\" on the west, there is only a single image, a lone deity called the \"Door Official Earth God\", a title which amalgamates the titles of the two usual deities.\n\nUrban and rural11 folk religion temples differ in that the former tend to be more sophisticated, always have a keeper and several other staff, cater for worship by individuals at any hour (between 8am and 6pm) and have a wealth of images. Rural temples, in the main also boast keepers, but these are usually absent as they are \"pensioners\",12 very elderly people who spend much of their time asleep, calling on friends or shopping. Devotees visiting a rural temple normally find no one to assist them, and presumably, as this is an accepted facet of rural life, nobody seems to mind. The urban temple keeper on the other hand has to earn his living or recoup his investment of an annual tender, and so he ensures that a member of the staff is permanently in the temple during opening hours to assist in devotions, offer for sale incense, oil, charms and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208881, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n15\n\nIn single-room and larger temples the major altar, which faces the entrance, may be either one large space reaching from side wall to side wall or it can be divided into three, five or more individual altars with, on occasions, a separate altar or two constructed down the side walls. (Plate 6).\n\nIn quite a number of traditional temples the main hall is divided longitudinally by partition walls from floor to ceiling. These stretch a short distance into the main hall from the rear wall of the temple, one on either side of the main altar. The two side altars are therefore outside the partitions, and in practice these partition walls serve to isolate the side altars.\n\nIn many traditional temples several major deities, and even a few minor deities, have a side hall dedicated entirely to themselves and their attendants. These include the God of Loyalty and Literature Guan Di; the fertility goddess Jin Hua Niang Niang; the bodhisattva Guan Yin and the wealth god Cai Bo Xing Jun. It is not necessarily a down-grading of the importance of the deity but a late recognition and addition to the temples' complement. A great many side hall altars contain a group of unconnected and unidentifiable minor images around the major and identifiable deity's image, all placed there over the years by zealous devotees.\n\nA side hall in one temple contained the lone image of the Earth God on the only altar, although the characters above the altar read Jin Hua Niang Niang. Presumably over the years the images of this fertility Goddess and her attendants had been removed and replaced by the image of the Earth God without the title above the altar being changed.\n\nThe temple incinerator, and the temple keeper's kiosk or counter from which he sells charm papers and incense, are usually in one or other of the side halls or courts between side halls.\n\nSide halls also contain large ritual items such as the temple bell, drum and the removable head and tail from the village dragon boat, and in one of the side halls of most Boat People's temples replicas of early junks (some 8' to 10' in length) also gather dust in the gloom. These model junks are used only on festival days when offerings are placed on the decks. The devotees thank Tian Hou for good catches over the previous year and request similar benefits for the coming year.\n\nThe roofs of traditional temples consist of interlocking tiles resting on lathes supported by strong cross beams. The latter are", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210315, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 286, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "265\n\nfields or tombs\n\nsome sites are only a few hundred yards from\n\nthe village but others a mile or more away.\n\nTea is first picked in the second ten-day period of the third lunar month: this is often close to the Ching Ming tomb worship-ping festival when villagers will in any case be visiting their tombs. If the tea is ready, worshipping can conveniently be combined with tea picking in a single one-day trip. The middle of the third lunar month is the time when the new young tender leaves are at their full size but have not yet thickened and coarsened — the best possible time for picking them. Traditionally, this period coincid-ed conveniently with a slack time in the rice-fields, after the first rice crop was transplanted out (end of first lunar month), and before the major cleaning of the crop from weed (end of third lunar month).\n\nBoth men and women pick the tea. First, any creepers or weeds which have grown up around the tea trees since the previous year are cut away. Then the new leaves are stripped off the tree. Most of the leaves are picked, but a proportion must be left to preserve the health of the tree. Later, new leaves will sprout to replace those stripped off: these were traditionally left for a few weeks and then picked. The trees would be stripped up to four times a year. At present, however, the villagers only pick for their own use, and only strip the trees once: the other strippings were to provide leaf for sale in the market towns. The first picking was by far the best; the later pickings producing a coarser tea with a poorer taste.\n\nPreviously, in preparation for the tea picking, the women of the village cut firewood on the hills and stack it near the houses to dry. Each house has a brick-built stove with a brick chimney which has on it an alcove for the Kitchen God shrine. The stoves are con-structed in the form of a hollow brick box with a circular hole on the top into which a wok just fits, and an opening on the side to allow the fire lit inside the stove to be tended.\n\nWhen the fresh tea leaves are carried back to the houses they have a slight fragrance and taste, but neither the fragrance nor the taste is at all similar to that of the prepared tea. To achieve the desired tea taste and fragrance it is necessary to rid the tea leaves of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211650, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "40\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh contained the character revealing where he had originated from. An altar in a converted shophouse temple in the suburbs of Taichung bore the title 'Chinmen Su Fu San Wang Yeh'. The temple keeper's family, also named Su, had brought the image over from Quemoy (Chinmen island) off Amoy.\n\nAn example of the many idiosyncrasies involving the worship of the surnamed Wang Yeh can be observed in the Ma Temple in Ssu Hu village in Yunlin county where the Ch'en family has worshipped Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui+ for many generations. The temple was built there with Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui as the major deity but following an epidemic Ma Fu Ch'ien SuiT, the ancestral deity of the local Ts'ao# family became the major deity on the altar. He is regarded as the senior of the two Wang Yeh. According to local legend, during a virulent epidemic Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui gathered together Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, Ta Sheng Yeh (Monkey god), the Third Prince (T’aitzu Yeh), Kuan Yu (the red-faced god of loyalty), and T'ien Shang Shengmu (The Holy Mother of Heaven better known as T'ien Hou) and together they stopped the epidemic. In their gratitude the locals extended the temple to honour them and, according to the temple keeper, the whole area has been peaceful and harmonious ever since. Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, the senior Pestilence deity in the group, is portrayed as a multi-armed deity, with a multi-coloured striped face sitting on a throne. It is very Hindu in its appearance.\n\nIn Hsin Ying near Tainan a main deity known as Han Lao Yeh##Zm but better known colloquially as Han Ch’ien Sui### was discussed by a number of villagers. In consensus they decided he was not a Wang Yeh despite being a protective deity who was particularly revered for the maintenance of good health. They were unable to identify Han but recalled that he had been a civil official in Fukien whose image had been brought over to Taiwan long after he had been deified.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh generally occupy the main altar of the temple in which they reside. The main deity will occupy the centre spot with the junior Wang Yeh in lesser positions beside him. However, in a number of temples they can also be seen in a row on the altar table before the main altar which can be dedicated to another, entirely unconnected deity. This would seem to be the temple staff taking advantage of the custom of borrowing a Wang Yeh image to take home for private reverence by the sick, who leave a donation in the temple for the service. Pestilence Wang Yeh images are frequently carried home from temples", "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": 211947, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 362, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "337\n\nThe Jau and Wong Temple also used to house spirit tablets to \"heroes\". The tablets (three in total, without names) were moved to the Yau-Leun Tong from the side altar in the temple about 50 years ago because they were siu-yan (“small people”), and it was unseemly to house them in the same temple as the two great men (daai-yan). As mentioned before, villagers agreed that the “heroes” were those who had died in fighting (da-saat) between Kam Tin and its enemies.\n\nKam Tin has quite a number of other temples. There are the Man-Cheung Temple and Hung-Sing Temple in Shui Tau, and the Tin-Hau Temple in Shui Mei. Many of the other villages, e.g. Kam Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen, and Wing Lung Wai, which do not have “standard” temples, have a san-teng, a house with an altar for a spirit tablet for about ten popular temple gods. The gods of some of the vanished temples, which include a Yeung-Hau Temple and a Bou-Dak Chi in Shui Mei, and the Hung-Fan Taam Temple of Shui Tau, are still worshipped in the jiu festival, as are the gods of two nunneries, in Shui Mei and Tai Hong Wai respectively, which no longer exist.\n\nThese temples and nunneries hold tablets or images of some 20 different gods, if we are to include the Earth God for temples, and Wai-To for Buddhist establishments. The other 18 include the popular temple gods Yeung-Hau, Tin-Hau, Bak-Dai, Man-Cheung, Gwun-Yam, Gwaan-Dai, Hung-Sing, the God of Wealth, Gam-Fa, Taai-Seui, the Dragon King, and the Buddha. The Bou-Dak Chi housed spirit tablets for Jau and Wong. There is not much information about this other temple dedicated to Jau and Wong, but it was worshipped probably only by the villagers of Shui Tau, where it was situated.\n\nFui-Sing, and Fa-Gung Fa-Mou are probably respectively responsible for success in imperial examinations and the health of children. Hoi-Saan Suk-Lou is a title found in some other local temples as well, and represents the earliest settlers of the place. Hong-Wong is a title that I have not seen elsewhere in the New Territories.\n\nThe titles of localized gods found in most of the Kam Tin villages include the God of Earth and Grain, the Water God of wells, and the Earth God for the gates of the walled villages. There are, in some of the villages, a Tree God and Earth Gods for bridges and for the gate to a complex of houses. In addition, there are Ngau-Wong and Pun-Gu,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 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": 212579, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "113\n\nBe born in Soochow; Live in Hangchow; \n\nEat in Kwangchow; \n\nDie in Liuchow, \n\nThe first is noted for beautiful women, the second magnificent scenery, the third tastiest cuisine, and the last durable timber for making coffins.\n\nIn 1988 coffins ranged from about $2,500, for a humble pine ‘box', to $300,000 for one smelling of eucalyptus. The coffin in this study cost $7,200. Coffins, known in slang as 'four half boards' (*), come, basically, in either Chinese or western styles. Timber for western coffins, say teak or rosewood, is often imported from Malaysia. For Chinese coffins, boards can be roughly hewn, up to four or five inches thick, retaining the curved outside of the tree trunk and hollowed out on the inside. Good quality China fir (**) from Luchow, in Kwangsi Province, can last, buried, for up to 100 years as demonstrated by old buildings in Hong Kong with their China Fir, piled, foundations. There are a number of coffin shops, some watched over by Ts'oi Shan the God of Wealth, at the western end of Hollywood Road. Many coffins with their white or yellow cloth linings are imported from China.\n\n23\n\nBy comparison, a British coffin is normally made of English oak (elm was used for cheaper coffins before World War II) with boards one-inch thick.24 This is usually rendered watertight with pitch or mastic and lined with a bed of sawdust, white drapery and a pillow stuffed with fine wood shavings.\n\nBecause of space, in present day Hong Kong it is not practicable for the elderly to have coffins made in advance and stored in an ancestral hall or at home, as was the custom in old China. They were revarnished every year. But if a person is too interested and 'finds the smell of coffins more appealing than the smell of cooked rice' (聞見棺材香過飯) the gods may come after him. (Similar words are occasionally uttered as a curse.) Some believe a small piece of coffin wood, if boiled and the water drunk, will keep away ghosts.\n\nContinuously, from three o'clock the day before to the actual funeral ceremony in this study, relatives and friends visited the hall to give face to the family and the departed. It is a greater offence not to attend a person's funeral than not to attend his wedding. The author recalls", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212690, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Plate 10. Bulbous Chinese-style, China-fir coffins, stacked in a shop in Hollywood Road. A small shrine to the Earth God and the God of Wealth offers protection in the foreground. (Photograph courtesy of Kit Hayward)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212737, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "31\n\nA native of China generally, whose chief characteristics are: sobriety, frugality, and industriousness; having a burning desire for male offspring, an insatiable appetite for public notoriety, and a terrible affinity for lucre; a being who is perfectly willing at all times, and in all places, to worship the God of Wealth, Ts'ai Shen, or any other particular god or deity, as well as all the known and “unknown\" gods and his own ancestors, as far back as he, or somebody else, may be able to have traced them, but more especially any of them who may have acquired wealth or fame in any age.\n\nPatronage and Name Dropping, and Incidental Anecdotes\n\nHe appears never to have missed an opportunity throughout his long life in China to pay his respects by calling on the local county, provincial and even national mandarins. A number of these officials were referred to thereafter on more than one occasion as 'friends' or 'officials with whom [Mesny] had conferred.' The one he most prided himself on was his 'intimacy' with the Chinese senior statesman, Li Hung-chang, by whom he would appear to have been tolerated, but only just, though with the normal Chinese courtesies.\n\nMesny knew the importance of patronage and name-dropping, especially in China: this we can see from the two and a quarter pages he devoted in one of his Miscellanies to the momentary meeting with a Manchu hereditary prince; his obituary of Tso, etc. He was as obsessed with his affiliation and rapport with the Chinese as he was about females, and at every possible opportunity he managed to name-drop and rub home his kindred feeling for the Chinese together with descriptions of their reciprocation in kind. Mesny refers with pride on a number of occasions to Chinese 'sworn brothers.' He disclosed these individually either without ever referring to them again or in some instances he simply mentioned their names in passing during descriptions of his journeys. One such blood brother was Chang Kuang-chun (or -chin) who in about 1874 was an Expectant ta-t'ai of Szechuan, and a Metropolitan literary graduate [Chin-shih] of the Tao Kuang reign. Another was Chang Ping-tang, the Military Secretary to the C-in-C of the Szechuan Force. Elsewhere in the Miscellany he claimed to have two Chinese sworn brothers, one a literary and the other a military undergraduate whom he had met whilst travelling in a provincial town in Kueichou. He met", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213287, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "89\n\nunease (even dread) if certain lore is followed concerning the construction or the furnishing of a building. A Chinese geomancer will probably be able to give specific reasons why it is so. It is not difficult to imagine that if someone's home is 'tranquil', and that if he or she feels 'comfortable' there, that this will be 'picked up', sensitively, eventually resulting in a greater degree of self-possession and, consequently, greater accomplishment.\n\nIn Chinese communities talismanic paper emblems above door frames, like the 'Five Happinesses' (signifying long life, wealth, health and peace, love and virtue, and natural death after a full span) are common. Understanding something of metaphysics one realises the power of the negative word. The Chinese characters signifying 'Coming or leaving go in peace', painted on a strip of red paper and pasted by the entrance, although by no means hypnotic or yogic techniques, mean a great deal to many. It psychologically 'hearts are put at ease' by constantly reading such messages (a form of auto-suggestion) then the desired effect is achieved.\n\nSome Chinese symbols can be compared with an old shoe tied to the back of the car of a newly married English couple; or a horseshoe (which must hang the right way up) by the door of a cottage. Inside the parlour you might find the motto, 'Bless this house', displayed. Certainly during World War II a number of British aircraft crew members, on bombing missions over Germany, carried lucky charms, such as rabbits' paws.\n\nFung shui has been likened to the pull of gravity or high voltage electricity. Others describe it as dei mat, the veins through which the pulse of the earth can be sensed. The end result, many believe, is directly proportional to the degree of skill of the fung shui practitioner. With the cosmos in a constant state of flux his task is to analyse bad elements and to advise on cures to help balance or restore the build-up and circulation of chi. Often it is accepted the fung shui specialist cannot prevent something from happening. But if he has mastered his art he can make the effects less severe.\n\nOf course it does not always happen so. 'My fung shui lo (\"fellow\") did not tell me so much red in my flat would upset Ng Wong (the Fifth King God),' a Chinese woman told the author. 'Also, he did not forecast the death of my friend's mother. All he is concerned with now is taking on as...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213340, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "144\n\nSee Henry Lethbridge, Hong Kong Stability and Change (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1978), p 200\n\n144\n\nWith an Additional Note by Professor Lo Hsiang-lin, JHKBRAS 7 (1967), pp 152-7\n\nSee the introduction to Ray Huang's 1587, A Year of No Significance (New York, Columbia University, 1988) \"Fu\", meaning wealth, is a felicitous rendering of \"Goodrich\"\n\nHe is mentioned in Robin Hutcheon's SCMP, The First Eighty Years (Hong Kong, SCMP, 1983) A photo showing him at ARP drill is at p 84\n\n12 See JHKBRAS 29 (1989), pp xvii-xx\n\n11 Ibid\n\n14 Samuel Couling, Encyclopaedia Sinica (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1917), p 378\n\n14 Ibid\n\n16 I was to be constructed in three separate stages Work had begun on the main contracts in 1981 and 1982, with completion forecast in 1984 and 1985, at an estimated cost (end 1982 figure) with all ancillary related contracts of HKD16 millions Information provided by the Engineering Development Department, HKG\n\n17 Same The likely cost at 1980 figures had been estimated at HKD7.3 billions\n\n18 See JHKBRAS 23 (1983), p. 129. One was dedicated to the famous Kwan Tai, the God of War, and the other to Yo Fei, a celebrated general and statesman of the Sung dynasty\n\n19\n\nThe 1872 Hong Kong Blue Book listed 72 stone quarries at Shaukeiwan See JHKBRAS 10 (1970), p 186\n\n20\n\nSee P Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaties 1898-1997, China, Great Britain and Hong Kong's New Territories (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1980), especially chapters 7 and 10, and Elizabeth Sinn, \"Kowloon Walled City: Its Origin and Early History\", in JHKBRAS 27 (1987), pp 30-45\n\n21 See Jackie Pullinger, Crack in the Wall, Life and Death in Kowloon Walled City (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1989)\n\n22 for a progress report on the clearance project, see e.g. SCMP, 24 September 1987\n\n23 Mr Lu Hau-Luen\n\n24\n\nOnly two are listed in the annual reports printed in the 1988 and 1989 Journals, but three were made, as noted in Vol 28 (1988), p ix", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213837, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "162\n\nbeen built in 1765. Since its establishment, the building has been renovated several times, in 1878, 1910, 1962, and 1978.7 The first recorded reconstruction, that is the one in 1910, is evident on the commemorative tablet installed on the interior wall of the temple. It is fortunate that the architecture through all these ages has retained its original style and character,\n\nThe temple, which can be considered a well-endowed and elaborate structure for its time, consists of three halls. In the main hall, a wooden idol of Houwang is installed at a shrine, covered with a canopy with the title \"Imperial Bestowed Loyal and Brave Marquis Yang\" (JAKE) written on each side. Clay statues of a civil official and a military official stand on the left and the right, respectively, as attendants to the local god. Enshrined in the side hall on the left are three spirit tablets. The one in the middle is for the pioneer villagers who established the temple; the one on the left is for those who donated the construction fee; the one on the right is for the men in charge of the reconstruction. In the side hall on the right, secondary divinities, such as mountain gods and earth gods, are enshrined. (See the floor plan of the temple.)\n\nThe facade of the temple is decorated by murals of scenes on walls and doors. On the left and right tips of the roof, there are streaked clay decorations in three dimensions. Figures of the martial arts, embellished with coloured glaze, are installed on the central ridge of the roof. It is recorded that these ceramic figures, of high quality workmanship, were manufactured at the well-known Shekwan kilns in 1910. In terms of structure and design, the Houwang Temple can be considered architecture of characteristic style. If the construction of a temple reflects the wealth of a community, Tung Chung's Houwang Temple seems to indicate that people there fared quite well before the locale declined into a periphery along with the shift of Hong Kong's economic core.\n\nIt is also surmised that a village coalition was being formed at the time of the construction of the Houwang Temple. As hundreds of immigrants moved into the New Territories after the \"Coastal Evacuation\" order in the early Ch'ing had been abolished, cult worship might have contributed to social integration and community building. Tung Chung's Houwang Temple, as mentioned above, is believed to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213840, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "165\n\n55\n\nrepresentatives of the rocket associations bid for the rockets Physical violence is avoided, but competition remains keen among bidders who strive to show superiority over each other in terms of wealth and power' To decide who in the winning group can take the representation of the god home, another ceremony should be held whereby the temple keeper, after placing on the temple altar a list of members of the rocket association and reciting a “song to invite the god\" (#), casts the divining blocks thrice for each member The winner is he who passes the divination three times in a row.\n\n1\n\n50\n\nIn addition to the representative associations from villages such as Mok Ka's Yu-ch'ing tang W, upper Ling Per's Ch'un-ying t'ang #*, Ngau Au's Ch`un-lu t’ang San Tau's Ch'un-ch'ing tang # , and so on, other units such as social clubs and recreational societies also form their own rocket associations. According to Hayes's observation in the 1960s of the concomitant celebration of the Houwang feast day and the reopening of the Houwang Temple after the first major repair in 1909, among the rocket associations, two were fishermen's groups, (one from Tung Chung and the other from Tai O) and one was formed by the Seamen's Union from Hong Kong which came to Tung Chung for the festival for many years.\" Many native Tung Chung seamen had joined the union. By forming the associations and attending the festival, members of the same profession can also exchange information and news of their trade. In this sense, the festival functions tend to promote solidarity not only among villagers, but also among colleagues.\n\nFor local residents of different surnames and various social backgrounds, the Houwang worship and its all-pervasive influence provide them with the social bond of union and the ideology of territory identity, through which the Tung Chung community seems to have become a culturally self-sufficient entity Even the fishermen settled in the district seldom visit the Empress of Heaven Temple at Chak Lap Kok or Ma Wan. Like other Tung Chung villagers, they pay homage mainly to the Houwang, the principal deity of the locale, and participate quite actively in the “bid-for-rockets” contest during the annual feast day festival.\n\nThe Houwang's Birthday celebration also provides the local community with an opportunity for contact with the outside world.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213845, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "170\n\nIn the area surrounding the Houwang Temple, colourful embroidered banners and decorated archways are erected. Before the formal feast day, i.e., the 16th of the eighth lunar month, nuns from Tei Tong Tsai are invited to pray for a successful festival by reciting Buddhist scriptures and burning paper cloth. To raise funds for the ever-expanding scale of the celebration, a party is held on the 17th, where rocket association representatives come to bid for sacred relics, i.e., items such as idols, vases, ornaments, etc. blessed by the deity. This is another opportunity, in addition to the bidding for rockets, for better-off villagers to boast of their wealth.\n\n74\n\nIn recent years, expenses for the festival have increased to around HK$500,000, including $100,000 or more for building the matshed and $200,000 or more for hiring opera troupes. Participating rocket associations increased from about five in the 1960s to more than fifteen in recent years. Showing off their financial capacity, some nouveaux riches since the War have become festival sponsors. They are settlers in Ma Wan Chung, which replaced Tung Chung Street as the local business centre, after a pier was built in the village vicinity in 1958 and a road leading to the pier was constructed in the 1960s. With improvements in water and electricity supply, medical services, etc., two-storey new houses were built in the pier area of Ma Wan Chung, changing the physical and social landscape of Tung Chung.5\n\nWhen Tung Chung Street's economic status was taken over by Ma Wan Chung, the Neighbourhood Association became obsolete and a new body emerged, under the name of the Preparatory Committee for the Houwang's Birthday Festival. The Committee consists of more than ten members, including village representatives and volunteers.76 With chairman, vice-chairman, and treasurer, this organization seems to be a modernized one, though people with economic power—shopowners in the area of Ma Wan Chung this time—continue to hold important positions. Even the location of the bulletin, recording the list of money donors in support of the god's feast day celebration, has changed from the exterior wall of the Yao-ho Store on Tung Chung Street to that of the Shun-ch'ang Store at Ma Wan Chung.\n\nWorth noticing is the effect of demographic change in Tung Chung since the 1950s. A great number of new immigrants moved in and settled in the district, filling the gap left by the male population, who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213847, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "172\n\nmeans of legitimizing their permanent residency in the district and increasing their local influence and power. When some seamen returned home, after foreign steamships had significantly reduced the recruitment of sailors from Hong Kong in the 1950s, they had become so unfamiliar with local affairs, as a result of their long leave from home, that even if they were elected village representatives on the Tung Chung's Rural Committee established in 1950 under government auspices, they served mainly as liaison men. Newer settlers at Ma Wan Chung, with their wealth and their leading role in organizing activities to commemorate the Houwang's feast day festival, have actually been among the leading local social élites, though not necessarily holding formal official positions.\n\nAdaptability and Tenacity: The Tradition of the Houwang Worship\n\nIn effect, the Houwang worship transcends blood ties and bridges the gap between old and new settlers, and thus functions to maintain a strong village coalition in Tung Chung. As a multi-lineage community, Tung Chung can be used as a case to support Judith Strauch's argument that economic and ritual cooperation and overarching unity, implicit in shared \"native place,\" instead of constant internal conflict and all-round uneasiness, can prevail in a mix-surname settlement.** It also fits Burton Pasternak's model of “villages in which families of different surnames joined forces and played down agnatic differences for the sake of survival.\"84\n\nIt is indeed in the villagers' interest to accept newcomers to the community, in order to make up for shortages of material and human resources.\n\nThis receptive and inclusive feature of local culture also grew out of a universal cult centering around the village coalition temple. While ancestor worship is only an individual or family/lineage activity and the worship of the earth god and Hsuan-t'an is usually on an individual or village basis, religious and social rituals in honour of the Houwang involve mass participation by the territorial community and work to renew collective consciousness of local identity repeatedly and systematically. During the time when the chino was held in the area, the Houwang as the principal local deity also played a role in that large-scale communal festival. The Houwang worship continued to dominate local religious life, and was even promoted by concentrating\n\n|\n\n|", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 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": 214317, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "139\n\nThree of the four lesser halls, though as large as the Jade Emperor Hall and Xu Hall or nearly so, are dedicated one to the Three Matrons of fertility and childcare; one hall to the wife of Xu, whose personal names were Heshi, known as the Palace of the Consort - Furen Gong - in which her image stands on the uppermost tier of three with the Lord of Time and his sixty minions, the Tai Sui, occupying the lower two tiers; a third hall to Guan Gong, the patron deity of loyalty and honour, and patron of soldiers; whilst the fourth hall, much smaller, is virtually empty apart from a single, small pottery image of a wealth god. This spread of cults within one temple is typical of the majority of the larger temples throughout Chinese communities.\n\nAll of the images within the temple complex are of comparatively recent manufacture, certainly since the early 1980s. The original images were destroyed during the years 1949-1976, during one or more of the political campaigns against superstition or social reform, mostly during the first days of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 when the temple was gutted. Some of the new images have been well made, artistically finished in paint on plaster and concrete. Others are crude, poorly finished and eyesores for posterity. The image of Xu, however, is one of the better ones and far from crude workmanship.\n\nThe grounds and halls on the day we were there in the Autumn of 1998 were seething with devotees, many of whom had travelled some distance to pay their respects to the deities. Long strings of firecrackers were being let off and amidst the deafening racket and the palls of smoke from these and burning offerings, the whole area was what Chinese know as re'nao, excitement and noise.\n\nAcross the road, however, in the comparatively small, enclosed and dilapidated garden, silence reigned and not a soul was to be seen. On the far side of the square artificial lake in the centre of the garden is a lengthy row of small, weathered and battered modern images, all unnamed, which on closer examination appeared to be many of the emperors of China since time immemorial. A Nine Dragon Spirit Screen stretches out behind them. Of greater interest were the half a dozen small rooms, similar to horse boxes with half-doors, which lined the rest of the far side, each containing a small tableau of life-size simple and gaudily painted plaster and cement figures. These were identified as episodic scenes from the life of Xu, ranging from his miraculous birth,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214366, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 224, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "190\n\nfor\n\nmany years. Although the government had turned a blind eye to such activities in the past, mainly in the name of making tourist dollars, it now focused attention on these 'superstitious rituals' which were said to be daily corroding the ideology of the people. The magazine, saying that market forces had prompted a resurgence of 'backward' religious practices, described how the system of traditional beliefs which had been finding fertile ground in the countryside was now creeping towards urban centres. This would seem neither to have inhibited nor prevented Taiwanese pilgrims flying into mainland China bearing Taiwanese images of deities to their particular cult centres in Fukien and Chekiang provinces for their 'power' [ling] to be renewed. It has to be remembered, however, that Taiwanese visitors are treated as privileged guests.\n\nProblems of luck and fate are as real today in China as they are in any rural society, and as they were in pre-communist China. Some private firms are reported maintaining altars on company premises and are making offerings to the traditional God of Wealth in the belief that this would help ensure their success in business. Buddhist statues have been placed in cultural centres and tutelary deities adorn the roofs of schools. Children too seem to have succumbed to the craze. A survey of 1,622 children between 11 and 12 in Changchun showed 50 per cent believed in fate and 40 per cent believed in the immortality of the soul. A further 40 per cent of boys and nearly 60 per cent of girls believed in spirits and in Heaven and Hell. It went on to describe the resurgence of superstitious practices and the appearance of several 'reactionary sects.' The September 1996 issue of Democracy and Legal System magazine said that tens of thousands of temples dedicated to China's colourful assembly of gods were being illegally built or restored. It quoted 20,1692 in Fukien province, 9,000 in Honan and 10,000 in Shansi provinces had been destroyed, and even 597 state-run restaurants in Peking had taken down and removed Buddhist shrines during one month alone. A further report described a similar crackdown in Hupei province where 1,600 'pagan' shrines, mostly dedicated to the Earth God, had been destroyed as part of the nation-wide crackdown. Similar action had been taken in Kueichou province where nine illegal temples had been closed in one month. A report about Chekiang province about the same time claimed that provincial officials had brought under control 17,900 Taoist, Buddhist or Christian [sic] temples and monasteries.\n\nThe mainland newspaper, Paok'an Wenchai, had about this same time criticised the widespread superstitious practices in the building", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214821, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 236, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "202\n\nTo this day, services for the departed, whether as newly-deceased souls or as wandering spirits, command the greater part of the time of practitioners from the two religions. Apart from the varied religious services carried out in the homes of the deceased, or in the temples and monasteries where similar rites were held for the departed, both Buddhists and Taoists are prominent in the rituals carried out in public places at the Hungry Ghost Festival.23 This, the most important ritualistic pacification of wandering souls and spirits during the lunar year, is still performed throughout Hong Kong on behalf of the general public by priests of the two religions, hired by local committees and associations.\n\nWhat People Want: Individual Expectations from Acts of Worship\n\nIn approaching the gods, whether in the temples and monasteries, or at the earth god shrines on the street or in the fields, the worshippers had specific requirements in view. Then as now, worshipping itself was principally devoted to obtaining divine assistance in time of trouble or to attain the object of one's desire or supplication. These usually concerned health and wealth, as well as general preservation from all ills, for oneself and for family members, deceased as well as living. There was also the need to obtain protection (because of their great potential for harm) from the general body of those many departed souls without living male descendants to care for them.\n\nUnlike the ritual services, worshipping was not carried out with the help of intermediaries from the two religions. It is a personal act, usually conducted by the individual before the altars in temples, monasteries or nunneries, or at the tombs of deceased family members and ancestors at certain fixed times of the lunar year.\n\nAs Archdeacon Moule says - and it bears repeating because it is so basic to an understanding of how Chinese people think and act - the prayers of the worshippers one sees in the temples are being \"addressed to images representing deities of living and present power.\n\n24 In Hong Kong, a visit to a large city temple like the Wong Tai Sin Temple in New Kowloon at a major festival leaves one in no doubt that the people believe in the ability of the god to grant their requests. Nor is satisfaction kept to oneself. The word soon gets around, and since the worship", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214974, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 70, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "26\n\nfrom the hill, in the town.\n\nIn that particular place on the Chinese provincial railroad construction, Han Suyin's baby elder brother, Gabriel (Sea Orchid), died simply because he was Eurasian. The French doctor working for the Belgian railroad-building company was engaged basically to look after the European employees' and their families' health, and these patients could see him at any time in his house on the hilltop. For Chinese and Eurasians he was available exclusively in his morning clinic, not meant for Europeans. Sea Orchid was most unlucky to get suddenly and seriously ill at a wrong time of the day, late in the evening, and his Belgian mother - obviously scared of the worst - took him immediately, although against the company's regulations, to the hilltop doctor's house. She was not even let in by the doctor's French wife and this shattering episode is described in detail in Chapter Nineteen of The Crippled Tree. The most dramatic part of the dialogue between the sick baby's mother and the doctor's French wife is cited below:\n\n“But my child is dying, he has convulsions. Madame, for the love of God, let me see the doctor.”\n\n“Certainly not, Madame. Don't shout like that, it is ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with your child, only teething. The doctor cannot see you.”\n\n“My baby is dying, my baby is dying,” screamed Mama, striking the door more violently, hurling her weight against it.\n\n“Get out, you and your filthy halfcast brat, get out of my house,” shouted the French woman upstairs. Then Mama heard a man's voice, and again the woman's: “I forbid you to go. Do you hear, Pierre? I forbid it. I will not have you kill yourself for the sake of a halfcast throwndown.” The next morning Sea Orchid was dead.\n\nHan Suyin was born to Roman Catholicism, owing to her deeply religious Belgian mother. Surprisingly enough, even Catholicism seemed split on racial grounds in that surrealistic land of Old China. In Chapter Twenty-Seven of The Crippled Tree, Han Suyin recollects her early memories of attending a Chinese Catholic school, attached to the Peking's Chinese Catholic Church (also known as East Church, or", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215070, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 166, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "123\n\nscroll stands in the centre and is flanked by two images each with his right arm raised holding a bell. The faces are one red and one black, and the pair are known as the Red Taisui and the Black Taisui, all three functioning as one deity.\n\nA six-armed image of Taisui in the side hall of the Penang City God temple shares the main altar with Guan Yin and the Great Saint [Qitian Da Sheng - though better known as the Monkey God]. In Cholon, Saigon, three separate deities are portrayed on one altar, each with Taisui added to his title. These are Ziwei Xingjun, Wenchang and Xuantan, the first being a stellar deity whose likeness is pasted or nailed to doors as a popular charm to ward off demonic attack, the second is the God of Literature and the third, a Wealth God. This nomenclature would appear to be a local whim, not seen nor heard of elsewhere.\n\nOnly in very few instances does Taisui have any assistants. Several temple keepers in Taiwan and Singapore explained that Taisui, like so many protective deities, has Five Demon Armies under his command. These he despatches to cope with recalcitrant humans who fail to honour Taisui properly or who have insulted him in any way. When humans come under any form of demonic attack the cause and source of the attack is usually revealed to them by mediums, who are then in a position to advise the individual what should be done to counter and ward off the evil effects, particularly so when the attack is mounted by tamed demons under the control of a deity, Taisui. They advise the human to immediately propitiate him and request him to call off his demonic forces.\n\nIn several novels Taisui is described as having ten assistants the last four being the gods of the year, the month, the day and the hour. All were described in the Deification of the Gods as having been slain at the famous battle between the good and evil forces at Wan Xian Chen and have been named as:\n\nLi Bing\n\n李丙\n\nHuang Chengyi\n\n黃丞乙\n\nZhou Deng\n\n周登\n\nLiu Hong\n\n劉洪\n\nIn a temple in Kalgan, a city known today as Zhangjiakou in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, Yin Jiao's second brother, Yin", "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": 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": 215112, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 208, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "165\n\nIn 755, during the revolt of An Lushan, Guo helped defend the capital, and in 760 he was despatched to recover territory from Central Asian barbarians and finally, three years after the Turfans [Uighurs] had captured the capital, Guo raised an army and drove them out, more by cunning than military force. The disasters which broke out during the declining years of the Tang Ming Huang emperor were suppressed chiefly by the vigour and determination with which Guo wrested province after province from the hands of the insurgents. He spent a considerable part of his life in warfare and was uniformly successful.\n\nHis images in temples in Northern and Central China usually portrayed him as an old mandarin, with a parted beard, both halves held separately in each of his hands, and with a tiered hat. Occasionally his image depicted him as an old man, sitting, with a long white beard and a white robe, carrying a ruyi sceptre engraved with the four characters for 'Everything shall be as You Desire'. According to one sect, the Jin Dan H., Guo is said to have founded the sect in collaboration with Lü Dongbin, the doctor of renown and one of the Eight Immortals. His image on altars in Sichuan was referred to as Cifu Tianguan14 where he was regarded as a God of Wealth.\n\nNo images of Guo have been noted on temple altars in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau or South-east Asia, though a temple in Haikang in Tainan county bears the hall title of Fenyang Dian and contains on its main altar not an image of him but one of a local provincial cult deity, Guangze Zunwang, the patron of the Guo clan.\n\nBoth Mesny and Timothy RichardR claim that Guo Ziyi was a follower of Nestorian Christianity, Mesny even claiming that Guo's name was carved on the famous Nestorian tablet at Xi'an.\n\nWe move on to images of the two major deified heroes of the era on temple altars who have had their historic figures embellished by tea-house story-tellers down the centuries include:\n\nZhang Xun✯ and Xu Yuan,F are heroes of renown and unique deities whose images have been seen on temple altars in Zhejiang, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia [Photographs 6 and 7]. Both are protective deities worshipped particularly by the southern Fukienese, both within Fujian province and in southern Fukienese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215126, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 222, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "हुण \n\n179 \n\nThis God is said to be deified General Guo Ziyi, the distinguished loyal Tang commander whose successes in battle led to the final victory over the rebels holding one of his grandsons. He is a popular member of a trio of deities. The other two are the God of Long Life with his domed head and the God of Wealth with his jade sceptre.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215348, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 125, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "73\n\nseem to be in no way connected with the wife and mother of the Tang dynasty generals.\n\nAlthough her image is popular in South-east Asia where it is to be found as the main deity on secondary altars in both Chaozhou and Hainanese temples, it has also been noted in Taiwan, and in Hong Kong in four temples and a further one in Macau. She is the main deity in one Hong Kong temple, and the main deity on secondary altars in the other three and in Macau.\n\nShe is accompanied in many instances by two anonymous aides or maids, though in a Hainanese temple in Malate in Manila they are known as Li Laoxian Gu #t, and in Medan in Sumatra in a Hainanese temple by two guardian generals, General of the Iron Ox, Tieniu Jiangjun and the General of the Bronze Ox, Tongniu Jiangjun. [see below 6 a]\n\nWeng Zhong is yet another deity regarded by Hainanese as uniquely theirs even though his image was noted in several places across central China during the late 19th century. Weng Zhong lived during the Tang and is only known for one remarkable incident. He was suddenly showered with gold. He was born in Gansu province and was a poverty-stricken scholar who lived alone - however, his windfall, the cause of which has never been explained, has led him to be regarded by some devotees to revere him as a God of Wealth. His image has been seen in a temple near Haikou in northern Hainan, simply portraying him as a scholar, standing, dressed in his robes and holding a tablet in both hands before his chest. His full name was Weng Zhongru 翁仲儒.\n\n6: Images of Aides to deities\n\na] As we have seen the Iron Ox General, Tie’niu Jiangjun 铁牛将军 is a tamed demonic spirit and guardian of the major deity Lishan Shengmu. He has only been noted once, paired with her other tamed demonic spirit guardian, the Bronze Ox General, Tongniu Jiangjun 銅牛将军, on the main altar in a specifically Hainanese community temple in Jalan Rindu in Singapore, now long pulled down for urban development. This may, of course, be an entirely Chaozhou cult but revered also by the Hainanese devotees of the local community and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216039, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 338, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "272\n\nAlthough not part of the Zhenjiang story a Daoist cult centre on Mao Shan, a mountain some fifty miles to the south, was visited annually by a stream of pilgrims in the Spring, a great many of whom passed through the convenient port of Zhenjiang. The Daoist Mao Shan school was arguably the most powerful Daoist sect during the Tang and maintained its great prestige down to at least 1949. The Mao Shan Daopai as it is known, is renowned for its seances and medium trances, and according to Mao Shan sect priests was founded in the fourth century AD with the Mao Shan sect priests considering themselves to be the highest ranking of all Daoist orders.15 The sect originally appears to have been meditative and only later did it fall into line with other sects.\n\nIn 1917 two images were observed by Otterwill in Zhenjiang, in procession, Yan Gong and Jiang Gong #, both patron deities of river boatmen. Both deities were popular on altars in and around Nanchang, Anjing and along the Yangzi. Also popular in central China, C. B. Day records that Yan Gong in Zhejiang province was one of the Five Daoist deities who presided over a period of danger, a member of the Celestial Board of Health 瘟部五帝.\n\nThere have been but few references in western writings to the legend and role of Yan Gong, a Patron of Sailors. According to Doré, \"he was regarded in Central China as the protector of sailors and the god of the tides [Chao Shen].\" This, presumably, means the patron deity of sailors in the rivers and estuaries of the Yangzi basin. However, Yang Laoda is the usual patron of boatmen on the Yangzi. Werner1 provides a more detailed description of Yan Gong, the god of sailors, adding a little to Doré. He notes that Yan Gong had a temple built in his honour near Shanghai during the reign of the first emperor of the period of the Three Kingdoms [ca. AD 240] and that he was the deified hero in that temple who protected Shanghai from rebel attacks during the reign of Ming Shi Cong [ca. 1540]. Other legends claim that he was born during the Song in Jiangxi, that he was one of the four major deities of Jiangxi province, and was a censor famous for his integrity. Or that he was again a native of Jiangxi but born during the Yuan, and drowned during a storm when returning home. He was buried but was seen by the inhabitants of his native district on the same day. When his coffin was brought to Nanchang and opened it was found to be empty, a miracle which led to a temple being built in his honour. Sailors have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216056, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 355, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "289\n\nThere has been many an article printed in Britain and the US both for and against their nationals whose activities as missionaries in China varied from the mild and mediocre to the wild, bigoted and in a number of instances weird and incomprehensible. There were those whose lonely lives drove them to despair, to insanity and even to suicide. Others caused untold harm to the cause by their intemperate sermons, lectures and even actions. Their success rate in China was abysmal and The Times even wrote that missionaries in general were not very well educated and not gentlemen.\" This was not always so and their social origins did not matter, but with a number taking the Bible literally, their grasp\n\nof the accepted meaning of biblical scriptures and of language, both English and Chinese, was inadequate leading not only to blinkered bigotry but also to an inability to 'sell' their ideals. There were a great many good, well-intentioned missionaries but with the general evangelising attitude of the Victorian era most Chinese found any spiritual message out of step with their personal religious experience and their own culture. Christianity as taught during the 19th and early 20th centuries failed to appeal to or attract contemporary Chinese who were possibly no more than mildly intrigued to hear what a foreigner might have to say. The multiplicity of sects, teachings and churches, as well as different terms for God, confused Chinese. The Roman Catholics had a far higher conversion rate primarily due to their sympathetic attitudes and policy of getting as near to being one of the community, in dress and living conditions [apart, that is, from the very rare luxuries of wine and cigars].\n\nMissionaries had first seen the Taiping Rebellion as the outcome of missionary enterprise. This view changed when it became apparent that the Taiping leadership had revised and interpreted Christianity. The Taiping leaders had, for example, adopted polygamy for themselves whilst banning it for their followers, and lived in luxury having misappropriated untold wealth.\n\nThe notable early Protestant missionary, Griffith John, made a sweeping reconnaissance across the Yangzi basin in June of 1858 but when visiting Zhenjiang he decided that it was too close to the Taipings at Nanjing and moved on.27\n\nThe London Mission eventually commenced work in Zhenjiang in 1868, and regarding the city as an outstation of Shanghai they rented", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]