[ { "id": 204255, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n20\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nOn the other hand, the variety of predators, especially in winter, is very great. Only two species actually nest here; the Black-eared Kite on Stonecutters and Hong Kong islands, and the White-bellied Sea-eagle at two eyries off the east coast of Hong Kong Island. Half-a-dozen kinds, however, may be seen during a day in the New Territories, including Spotted Eagles and Buzzards, Marsh Harriers and Kestrels, Sparrowhawks and Ospreys. One of the most spectacular of sights in winter is the nightly roost of kites on Stonecutters Island, where up to eleven hundred birds may be seen just before dark, swirling and spiralling as they prepare to settle down for the night.\n\nThere is only one true game-bird here; the Chinese Francolin or 'Partridge', as the local sportsmen call it. Its crowing call 'Come to me, Ha-Ha!' is well known and may be heard on almost any open hillside throughout the Colony. The quail is found only on passage and during the winter, mainly in the paddy-fields. All but two of the rails and crakes found in the Colony are rare, and only the White-breasted Waterhen definitely nests here. It is an attractive grey and white bird, but very shy.\n\nTo many bird-watchers the waders are the most exciting of all our birds, and the numbers that may be observed in the Deep Bay marshes are often quite amazing. It is possible to see up to twenty species in a day in spring and autumn, and almost every kind of wader on the China list has been seen here. The more common species are the Little Ringed Plover, Kentish Plover, Greater and Mongolian Sand-Plover, three kinds of snipe, Whimbrel, Wood Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, Grey-rumped Sandpiper, Terek Sandpiper and Temminck's Stint. There are over thirty other species, most of which can be expected to turn up in the course of every year.\n\nOne of the few features lacking in the beautiful harbour of Hong Kong is a permanent population of sea-gulls. On a really cold day in winter several hundred gulls may be seen there scavenging for food. Although they are nearly all Herring Gulls, well known for loud voices in their breeding grounds, here they are a silent lot and rarely stay about for more than a few hours, preferring the open sea once the temperature rises again. However, terns are a common sight over the marshes on passage, and, if the weather is very stormy in mid-summer, large numbers are blown here from their breeding ground on the Paracels. Amongst the more common species are the White-winged Black Tern, Gull-billed Tern and Black-naped Tern.\n\nThe Spotted Dove is the only resident representative of its family, and it is quite common in both town and country. The Red Turtle-dove is also fairly numerous in autumn, and the Rufous Turtle-dove in early spring.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204269, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n33\n\nmurdered man sent a messenger to report the murder to the throne, the messenger too was killed by Kuo's followers. The Emperor ordered Kuo's arrest, whereupon Kuo left his family and ran away by himself. After a long time he was caught, but exhaustive investigations showed that all his crimes had been committed before a recent amnesty and he could not be punished. However, something new happened. A Confucian scholar from Kuo's native district remarked, \"Kuo Chieh makes it his business to break the law; how can he be called a worthy man!\" When one of Kuo's followers heard this, he killed the scholar and cut off his tongue. The officials questioned Kuo about this, but he really did not know who had done it. The killer was never found, and the officials reported to the Emperor that Kuo was innocent. However, the Imperial Censor Kung-sun Hung said, “Kuo Chieh is a commoner who indulges in knightly deeds and wields great power. He would kill a man for a trivial offence. Though he does not know about this murder, his crimes are greater than the murderer's, and he deserves the penalty for high treason.\" Therefore, Kuo and his whole family were executed.\n\nApart from the knights described in the \"Biographies of knights errant\", we find others mentioned in various individual biographies in the Shih chi. From these accounts we get a fairly clear picture of the typical behaviour of the ancient Chinese knight errant. What were the ideals underlying such behaviour? Briefly, the ideals of knight errantry were justice, altruism, honour, and individual freedom. In many ways, the knight errant formed a strong contrast to the Confucian scholar. While the Confucian scholar aimed at order and moderation, and stressed the need for the individual to conform to a rigid pattern of behaviour and to subjugate himself to the family, the knight errant stressed justice and freedom and placed personal loyalty above family loyalty and above law and order. Both were condemned by the Legalist thinker Han-fei-tzu, who said, \"The Confucians disturb the law with their writings, while the knights errant break the law by force.\" It is easy to see why he condemned them both, for both placed a moral code above the law, though the moral code of each was different. The Confucian regarded obedience to one's sovereign and parents as a sacred duty more important than observance of the law, but would not resort to force in the discharge of such duties; the knight errant, on the other hand, regarded loyalty to a friend as more important than one's duties to one's king and parents, and would not refrain from violence in performing what they considered their moral obligations or what they thought their honour required. In so far as the knight\n\nA\n\ne.g. the biographies of political assassins (chüan 86); the biographies of Chi An and Cheng Tang-shih (chüan 120).\n\n* Han-fei-tzu, \"Wu tu\" chapter, quoted by Ssu-ma Ch'ien at the beginning of the \"Biographies of knights errant”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204276, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n40\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nheroes have remained favourites.\" On the stage, a knight errant is easily distinguishable from a general: the former usually wears a short jacket and trousers and wields a sword or club, while the latter wears full armour with banners behind his back and uses a spear or halberd,\n\nWe now come to the last stages in the evolution of chivalric literature. In the Ming and Ch'ing periods, two notable trends developed in chivalric fiction. On the one hand, in some stories of chivalry, the supernatural element was increasingly emphasized, so that a type of knight with “flying swords\" and magic power became popular. On the other hand, some tales of knightly deeds became mixed with stories about “legal cases”, so that a new type of fiction, which may be called chivalric-romance-cum-detective-story, developed. An early example of the first type is a novel called The flying sword (Fei-chien chi), published in the Ming dynasty, about the Taoist immortal Lü Tung-pin and his acquisition of magic powers. Later examples are too numerous to mention. In fact, such stories are still being written now in Hong Kong. Sometimes they are presented in the form of comic strip cartoons, known as \"serial pictures\" (lien-huan t'u-hua), obtainable from small book stalls and pavement lending libraries. The second type, which combines tales of chivalry with detective stories, has also remained popular to the present day and is still being written. There is an interesting difference between this type of fiction and earlier tales of chivalry. In stories belonging to this type, the knights errant are usually on the right side of the law, instead of rebelling against it. For instance, in popular stories about Judge Pao, the Chinese Solomon, various knights errant help him in detecting crimes and arresting bandits and local bullies. Originally these stories about Judge Pao only dealt with crime and detection. They were first joined together and published as a novel entitled The cases of Judge Pao (Pao-kung an) about 1600. Later, the knights who helped Judge Pao assumed greater importance in these stories, which formed the basis of another novel, Three knights and five righteous men (San-hsia wu-yi), published in 1879. This was revised by Yu Yüeh and given the title Seven knights and five righteous men a few years later, and achieved great success. It was followed by a sequel, the Junior five righteous men (Hsiao wu-yi), and further supplements. Imitations also followed. Among these may be mentioned The cases of Judge Shih, first published in 1838, and The cases of Judge P'eng, first published about 1895. These were based vaguely on recent historical figures, and the knights errant in these novels were probably in\n\n24 Plays about the Shui-hu heroes have been collected by Fu Hsi-hua and Tu Ying-t'ao in Shui-hu hsi-ch'ü (Shanghai, vol. I, 1957; vol. II, 1958).\n\n25 Sun K'ai-ti, op. cit., p. 170.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204335, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n99\n\nIn general, lay Buddhists have been increasingly active here over the past twenty years, particularly in social welfare work. The Sangha, which had declined almost to the vanishing point by 1949, was restored in size and quality by an influx of refugee monks (estimated at 800-1,000) in the early 1950's. Most of these, however, gradually moved on to other areas. With one or two exceptions the monasteries now tend to be static and withdrawn. Though nunneries, like lay organizations, have taken an increasingly active role in social welfare, the initiative in many cases has come from laymen.\n\nThus we may say that Buddhism in Hong Kong fits into the pattern of Chinese Buddhism as a whole over the past hundred years; revitalization of faith and practice among laymen, sparked by a few really able monks, whose talents stand in all the greater contrast to those of most of their brethren.\n\nII. ORGANIZATION OF THE SANGHA\n\nThe monastic institutions of Hong Kong, like those of China proper, are individual entities, not subject to the authority of a patriarch or any other central organ of the school to which they belong. It is best, in fact, not to think of them as belonging to distinct and separate schools. In any given monastery one monk may \"study Ch'an\" while another \"studies Pure Land\". Monasteries are usually classified according to the school of the abbot and a change of abbot can mean a change of classification. Thus the Chuk Lam Monastery in Tsuen Wan was once Ch'an, is now Pure Land, but shelters monks of other schools, like the Esoteric disciple of the great T'aai Hui [T'ai Hsü], who was himself of the Idealist School. Generalizing, one might say that whereas religious tolerance in India and Tibet is usually based on an awareness of the difference between one's own doctrines and those of one's neighbour, tolerance in China is more often based on a desire to unify all religious doctrines and a belief that it can be done. That is why I spoke above of \"3,400 purportedly Buddhist laymen.\" Some of them may be equally interested in or influenced by Taoism or one of the popular syncretistic sects in Hong Kong. This is not to assert that there is no awareness in Hong Kong that Buddhism is divided into schools. At the Tung Wah Hospitals Prayer Meeting, last held September 6-13, 1958, there were separate altars for Wah Yim [Hua Yen]; Pure Land; Mat Tsung [Mi Tsung or Esoteric School]; Faat Wah [Fa Hua]; while monks of other schools participated in prayers at three common altars. The place of honour in the entire meeting was given to the venerable abbot T'aam Huilt [Tan Hsü], whose school is T'in T’oi [T'ien T’ai or Fa Hua].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204336, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n100\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nThe atomization of the Sangha in Hong Kong, as in China proper, has caused a wide variation in the quality of institutions. One monastery, for example, is little better than a public house. It has a restaurant that serves wine; the sound of mahjong drowns out the crickets on summer evenings; there are ping pong tables in the monastery garden; rooms are available; and the abbot (if one can call him that) is said to have originally joined the Sangha in China to escape criminal prosecution. In another, not entirely dissimilar monastery, the abbot is unable to read and write. Yet in both cases, there is a Buddha Hall and worship is carried on. These are two of the monasteries most often visited by tourists.\n\nOn the other hand, there are some institutions that really do credit to Chinese Buddhism. The members study the doctrine and, in many cases, do admirable welfare work, as we shall see below. The Vinaya is observed. The premises are well kept. There is an atmosphere that can make even the casual visitor think of taking refuge there from the dust of the world. The best example is probably the Po Lin Tsz on Lantao.\n\nMost Hong Kong monasteries are in the New Territories, built on hillsides, often with a fine view. They usually have an extensive set of buildings, capable of accommodating a much larger number of persons than are actually in residence (a reminder of greater prosperity in times past). Nuns and lay women devotees may be found in the same institution, living and worshipping separately from the monks. One reason for this type of \"co-educational\" arrangement is that only monks can be dharma masters, qualified to teach. In a nunnery, therefore, disciples must await their occasional visits.\n\nThe largest of the Colony's monasteries is the Tung Po Toh* in Tsuen Wan, which has about 40 monks, 60 nuns and 30 lay women. The Chuk Lam Shim Yuen, also in Tsuen Wan, has 20 monks, 30 nuns, and 100 lay women. On the other hand, another of Tsuen Wan's well-known institutions, the Wang Faat Tsing She, has monks only, ten in number. These figures are representative for the Colony's larger monasteries. Actually, the only other large monastery is the Po Lin Tsz, which has 30 monks, 20 nuns, and 50 lay women.*\n\n* All these figures are approximate, partly because there is a certain amount of coming and going and partly because of the feeling on the part of informants that a round number is adequate\n\nThe internal organization of Hong Kong monasteries (and the same would apply to nunneries) is generally as follows. All authority rests in the hands of the abbot. Under him there are, theoretically, four departments in charge of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204341, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n105\n\nBecause of their limited resources monasteries in Hong Kong have never been able to act as is'ung lam, that is, public monasteries which on the mainland made it their obligation to accept all wandering monks. There has been and is no religious obligation for Hong Kong monasteries to receive refugees or visitors. They are private institutions and a stranger, even though he is an ordained monk in good standing, can be refused admission. There have, however, been some monasteries here (notably the Tung Pu Toh) that did manage to shelter hundreds of refugee monks in the years immediately following 1950, and they have been much admired for so doing. Most of these monks have since emigrated to Taiwan.\n\nOne of the problems facing the Sangha in Hong Kong is how to maintain its size. While the number of lay Buddhists is growing, the Sangha is not. Only the Po Lin Tsz performs ordination. Other monasteries do not have the equipment and personnel required. The South China Buddhist Academy (at the Wong Faat Tsing She), which was the only seminary in the Colony, has ceased to function because there were not enough candidates for the rigorous training it offered. It may be that the atmosphere in Hong Kong does not favour the development of the attitudes that best lead a young man to take refuge in the Three Jewels. If his only reason for accepting the hardship of monastery life is to escape greater hardship outside the monastery, he is unlikely to have the diligence necessary for seeking enlightenment or to contribute much in the way of helping others to seek it. The Sangha faces the danger of decline both in size and quality.\n\nIV. GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION\n\nThe Chinese Temples Ordinance, passed in 1928 to protect the public from extortion and fraud which were then becoming more prevalent in the urban areas, deals with places of Chinese worship open to the public where fees or other charges are levied. Such temples are placed under the control of a statutory Chinese Temples Committee, consisting of leading Chinese citizens with the Secretary for Chinese Affairs as the chairman and the only government member. The Committee can require the transfer of any temple falling within the provisions of the Ordinance and all its property, without compensation, to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs' titular ownership. Five old temples are specifically excluded from the operations of this Ordinance; a sixth one, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, often used by film companies, has for over 50 years had a separate Ordinance of its own placing it under the control of the Tung Wah Hospitals; the administrative and financial supervision of seven others is delegated by the Temples Committee to the Tung Wah Hospitals. The Temples Committee at present directly administers 36 temples,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204358, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 126, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n122\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\ntouch the dead is to run the risk of becoming infected by an aura of ill-luck (sz yan fung) whereby all the misfortunes of the deceased will be transmitted.\n\nAmongst fishermen fear of the dead and of ill-luck is particularly pronounced. At Tai O on the north-western end of Lantau, fisherfolk on their death bed may be taken from their boats to die in a special house maintained for the purpose near the cemetery.\n\nDuring funeral processions in both the urban areas and the New Territories it is the practice to scatter different types of paper, representing money, along the route to the burial ground, particularly at cross-roads where traditionally malevolent spirits tend to congregate. It is hoped that in the confusion caused by the evil spirits grabbing the money the spirit of the deceased will be able to pass unscathed. The remainder of the paper money thrown out at points other than cross-roads is for the use of the spirit of the deceased in making his way back to his home three days after death (saam ch'iu ooi wan). In many homes, a corner in a hall or passage may be reserved for a tablet and memorial, to house the spirit on its return to the home. This return of the spirit may at first sight be difficult to reconcile with the belief that the spirit descends into hell. The answer is that according to Chinese belief each dead person has a number of spirits. The descent of one of these spirits into hell is often assisted at the burial by the scattering and burning of specially printed hell bank notes (meng t'ung chí paî), together with paper effigies of clothes, suit-cases, motor cars, steam ships, aeroplanes, etc., often of most elaborate and detailed construction.\n\nThe impact of crowded living conditions, economy and improved public health have had their gradual effect in changing the pattern of Hong Kong burial custom. Except for paupers, by far the greater proportion of Chinese dead from the urban areas (numbering some 10,000) are now buried in the public cemetery at Wo Hop Shek, near Fan Ling in the New Territories. Coffins may be conveyed by rail from Kowloon daily as a service included within the burial fees that are $5 or $15 according to size of coffin. Only some 20% of the coffins are carried to the cemetery by private hearses at the expense of the relatives. Of the balance brought by rail, not more than half are attended by relatives. It is obviously not possible in a public cemetery to site graves in accordance with individual interpretations of good fung shui. The fact that each coffin is simply allotted the next vacant space in the burial terrace is readily accepted, although it must be admitted that the majority of terraces are well up the hillside with a commanding view of distance and water. Similarly, when the routine six months' notice of intention to exhume remains from the coffin sections is given, it is unusual for relatives", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204381, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "should like to appeal to other merchant houses and individuals in the Colony, who probably need only to have the nature and needs of the Society made known to them to follow the generous example of our first benefactors. In the second place, the greater part of the amount of about $7,000 now in hand will soon be needed to cover the cost of the production and distribution of the Journal Vol. II, to a free copy of which each member is entitled by virtue of his subscription. We also urgently need a public address system, made necessary by the steadily increasing size of our audiences. We shall have to consider the purchase of projectors and apparatus for the exhibition of colour slides with which many lectures are now illustrated. Hitherto we have been fortunate in that we have been furnished with all the necessary equipment by the British Council, to whom and to their projectionists I wish to tender the thanks and appreciation of the Society. Furthermore, until now the British Council Room has been our home ever since the first preliminary meeting of the Society in 1959, and all except three or four of our meetings have been held here. Our lecture expenses in 1961 amounted to only $213.75, and most of this sum was incurred when a larger room had to be taken in the Hong Kong Club. Without the generous help of the British Council and its Representative here, Mr. R. E. Lawry, who is our Honorary Secretary, in placing this room and all its amenities at our disposal free of charge the Society could not have been in the financial position it is in today. On behalf of the Society I wish to express our deep appreciation to the British Council and to Mr. Lawry and his staff for all they have done in giving the Society a home for now over two years, and in the absence of a home of our own we hope that the Council will continue its generous support.\n\nFinally, there is one other matter of expenditure we have to consider—the building up of a library. We are already in touch with many learned societies all over the world who send us their journals and publications, usually in exchange for copies of our own Journal. These will form a valuable nucleus of a collection. We need and appeal for money and gifts of books to build up an Oriental Library worthy of the Society, a collection of books and periodicals which we hope may serve to supplement the more general library of the City Hall and which can be made available for research study and reading not only to members", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204391, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "14\n\nF. S. DRAKE\n\na swastika, turning to the left or to the right; Type 3, a simple cross drawn vertically; Type 4, a simple cross drawn diagonally; Type 5, a figure similar to a Roman capital I; Type 6, a solid circle or dot; Type 7, a hollow circle; Type 8, Miscellaneous. No attempt has been made to illustrate all of these on the plates. When the nineteen types according to shape are combined with the eight types according to design, a total of 152 well-defined types is given. But within this total an infinite variety of individual differences is possible; in the present collection not more than one pair of duplicates has been identified as coming from the same mould (No. 463 and the sixth unnumbered seal). It would seem therefore that duplication has been purposely avoided, perhaps for security reasons.\n\nOf the 979 pieces in the Collection about three fifths are cruciform in shape, about one fifth are bird-shaped, some of which, a single bird with spread wings, may suggest a cruciform outline, while the bird itself is also a Christian symbol.\n\nOf the central patterns the greater number are the swastika, whether turning to the left or to the right, a symbol adopted by the Buddhists, but being of older origin, and used also in such Christian monuments as the Nestorian Tablet of Sianfu (A.D. 781). Next in number comes the cross, whether placed vertically or diagonally. Attempts to read Greek letters in the other linear designs have not succeeded.\n\nThe backs of the crosses are flat, with a strong loop (or two loops crossing each other) fixed for attaching a leather thong for suspension (Pl. II, Fig. f). Some of these are worn through, as though carried for a long time on the person by a horseman.\n\nThe designs are in high relief, too deep for an ordinary seal, but admirable for impressing on a slab of mud.\n\nII. THE NESTORIAN CHURCH\n\nman.\n\nWe may now ask how it came about that these bronze crosses of Mongolian workmanship and of Christian origin became buried in the sands of the Ordos region beyond the memory of living. We must remember that in the beginning Christianity not only spread westwards from Palestine into Europe, but that it moved eastwards at the same time through Syria to Persia and India. According to ancient Christian tradition St. Matthew and St. Thomas evangelized the East as St. Peter and St. Paul", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204395, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "18\n\nF. S. DRAKE\n\nworking with their hands in the well-kept vineyards, the cherished penmanship and the care of ancient manuscripts reminiscent of 'the knowledge and zeal, which once so eminently distinguished the Chaldaean priesthood'.\n\n4\n\nThis is the Church which evangelized the greater part of Asia during the ancient and mediaeval periods, truly it has been called a Church on Fire, and the Great Missionary Church of Asia. But that the fruit of its labours are no longer manifest is because no Church has suffered martyrdom as this Church has; it has become the great martyred Church of the world.\n\nIII. THE NESTORIAN CHRISTIANS OF THE ORDOS REGION\n\nThe story of the Nestorian missionary movement before the Mongols conquered Central Asia and established the Yüan Dynasty in China (A.D. 1260 to 1368) can be pieced together with difficulty from scattered references in the Syriac records; but during the Mongol domination vivid descriptions of their activities have been left to us in the pages of the Mediaeval travellers from Europe to the courts of the Mongol Khans. These can be divided into two groups: Franciscan Friars and travelling merchants.\n\nIt was the time of the Crusades, and the great widening of men's horizons that these brought about. The enlightened policy of the Arabs had been followed by the restrictive measures of the Turks, now converted to Islam. Europe was stirred by the danger. The astonishing success of the First Crusade (1096-1104) was followed by the failures of the Second (1146-1187), and Third (1189-1192). The Fourth Crusade was diverted against Constantinople (1200-1205); shortly after, the Mongols appearing from the ends of the earth ravaged Armenia, and crossing the Caucasus, penetrated into Southern Russia in 1232. The great invasion followed in 1238—Russia, Poland, Hungary. At the\n\n11 A. H. Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, London, Murray, 1849.\n\n12 Stewart, The Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, 1928.\n\n13 These have been collected by Assemanni, Bibliotheca Orientalis, Rome, 1728 (4 vols.). See also Mingana, The Early Spread of Christianity in Central Asia and the Far East, Manchester Univ. Press 1925, and Bull. of John Rylands Library, July 1925.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204433, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "54\n\nSOME OF CHINA'S THIRTY-FIVE MILLION NON-CHINESE\n\nA lecture delivered on January 15, 1962\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS, M.A., PH.D.*\n\nThe title of this paper indicates the existence in China of enough people, fundamentally of non-Chinese origin, to be equal to the population of Korea, Poland, or Mexico. Before discussing them, however, it is necessary to define the term Chinese. At least two definitions may be acceptable: one is that Chinese are citizens of the territory constituting China as a state; the other is more restricted and applies to that unique cultural group known as the \"Sons of Han\" which evolved the ideographic Chinese writing, which has a recorded history and literature of several thousand years, and whose ethical character has been epitomized in the teachings of Confucius. They constitute ninety-five per cent of the people of China, but there remain five per cent who do not derive from the cultural heritage of the Han, but whose ancestors occupied areas north, west and south of the Yellow river heartland of the Han people. These speak different languages, practice different customs, wear different habits and often make their livelihood in different manners from those of the Han. Recent classifications show at least fifty different such ethnic groups in China. This talk, however, is concerned with only the groups in south and southwest China where about twenty-five of the approximately thirty-five million people in the non-Han classification dwell.\n\nIf we examine the historical ethnography of China at the time of Confucius, we find that the Yangtze valley and China south of it belonged not to the Han but to the non-Han peoples. By this time, however, many of the occupants of the Yangtze valley had to a greater or lesser degree become acculturated to Han-Chinese ways. A fief holder of the Chou emperor who was \"barbarian\" whose descendant became the king of the state of Ch'u in the central Yangtze valley was proud to declare:\n\n* Dr. Wiens has spent many years in China. He is Associate Professor of Geography, Yale University, and has specialized in geographic studies of Southern China. Author of China's March Towards the Tropics. He spent the academic year 1961-62 as a visiting lecturer at the University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204435, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "56\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS\n\nContact between the Han and non-Han resulted in the gradual acculturation of the lesser to the superior culture, and military conquest hastened the overwhelming of the lesser cultures in the kind of areas in which the Han were interested in settling, chiefly lowland valley farming regions. Into the poorer mountain lands of south China the Han found small reason at first to penetrate, and these were left to the mountain tribesmen whose ancestors occupied the land before the coming of the Han.\n\nThe history-conscious Han people left records of their contacts and conflicts with the non-Han peoples in all parts of China, so that we can find the names of some 800 ethnic groups, or, rather, 800 names of ethnic groups with whom the Han came into contact in the course of their expansion from the Yellow river heartland. Many of these names no doubt were of identical groups recorded at different times by different people. The brief notices revealing the ethnic characteristics of these groups were sufficient to allow their classification by later students into larger common tribes. An especially useful study of these groupings was made by Professor William Eberhard, presently of the University of California, Berkeley.2\n\nOf these 300 odd ethnic groups, Professor Eberhard found that only eighty were met with in north China; 290 were found in south China and 345 were found in southwest China. The small percentage found in north China probably reflects both the topography and the climate of the north. The dry climate of the northern peripherals of China restricted livelihood and population number, whereas the grasslands and plains reduced isolated ethnic evolution and developed a greater degree of intermixture and homogeneity than in the south. Similarly, the south China hills and valleys are less isolating than the high mountains and deep gorgelands of the southwest, so that less ethnic variety is found in the south than in the southwest. Thus, cultural diversity appears to reflect the topographic character of the land.\n\nProfessor Eberhard recognized that, with the beginning of history in south and southwest China, there were four major cultural groupings in southwest China and three major and six\n\n2 William Eberhard, Kultur und Siedlung der Randvölker China (The culture and settlement distribution of the peripheral peoples of China), T'oung Pao, Supplement to Vol. 36, Leiden, 1942.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204475, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "96\n\n5\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nSee a tablet in the Chow-Wong School at Kam Tin.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 188.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 188.\n\n'Lockhart's figures, given in Appendixes 3 and 5 to his Report are not exact, and he has emphasised his sketchy estimate of the land population \"in default of any reliable statistics possessed by the Chinese Government\" and said he had been unable to obtain even an estimate of the boat people Papers 1899 pp. 187,189. Taking areas within my own detailed knowledge I have found that villages established long before 1898 have not been included in the returns or else have been linked with other villages without special mention, The population figures for the Islands, in particular, are not above suspicion and are probably greater than shown in Appendix 5.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 189.\n\nPapers 1899 p. 189.\n\n10 Universal ownership was clearly shown by the land survey which followed the lease of 1898. This was carried out by surveyors and staff on loan from the Government of India, and was followed by a registration of titles which was enlivened by land courts which sat to determine possession in disputed cases. The survey sheets and the Crown Rent Rolls which form the schedules to them can be found in the District Offices of the New Territories Administration and they are a valuable record of land ownership and land classification at the time of the lease.\n\nAt Shek Pik and Fan Pui in 1958 out of sixty-six families four owned between 3-4 acres, nine between 2-3 acres, nineteen between 1-2 acres, fourteen owned between a half to one acre, twelve owned between a quarter to a half, and eight between 10 to 25 acres. Except a few late arrivals, therefore, every family owned land of its own. The position was much the same as in 1898.\n\nThe same was true of Wei Hai Wei, of which Johnston wrote Lion & Dragon, p. 148, \"Whatever the faults of the Chinese social system may be there is no doubt that in Wei Hai Wei it very largely accounts for the complete absence of pauperism (though no one is rich) for the orderliness of the people (nearly everyone has a stake in the land and has nothing to gain and everything to lose from disorder), for the uninterrupted succession of father and son in the homesteads, and for the long pedigrees attested by family graveyards and ancestral tablets\".\n\n11 See Johnston Lion and Dragon pp. 134-54. I have compared customary deeds of sale and mortgage from the New Territory between the years 1898 and 1958 with those cited by him and find that they invariably follow the same form (see especially Johnston pp. 144-145). These deeds are known as white deeds (as in Ching times) and had not been put through the formal process of registration in the District Office which would turn them into legal documents; or, as formerly in Ching days, in the Magistrate's yamen when they became red deeds (RI #). They were common until the Pacific war and even now are occasionally known to be drawn up in addition to the Memorial registering the conveyance in the Land Office. To select an example at random here is one from Shek Pik on Lantau Island dated the second year of the Republic (1913) which reads", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204505, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "122\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nQUERIES\n\nPRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE FINDS AT SHEK PIK\n\nAt the beginning of March 1962 a bulldozer employed by Messrs. Dragages on the reservoir site at Shek Pik, south-west Lantau, uncovered coins and pottery on the hillside above the abandoned village of Shek Pik Wai. Unfortunately, the find was not reported by the Company and it was only after a member of the Chief Resident Engineer's staff got to hear of it that steps were taken to recover as much as possible from the workmen.\n\nSome three hundred coins and several small sherds of pottery and porcelain were handed in to the Waterworks Office by the Chief Resident Engineer, Shek Pik and these were sent to the Curator of the City Hall Museum, Mr. J. M. Warner, who passed them to me for a preliminary examination.\n\nOn Sunday, 11th March, members of the Archaeological Team of the University went out to Shek Pik and spent the better part of a day looking round the area which had been cleared by the bulldozers. We managed to recover over a hundred more coins and, which was possibly of greater importance, picked up fragments of porcelain from the site.\n\nThe coins have now been given a preliminary classification in the District Office, Islands. Fortunately, despite their long burial, the characters on most of the coins are still decipherable and it has been possible in all but a few cases to determine to which reign dates they should be assigned. They appear to be copper coins and with the exception of two small groups, have reign titles in the Sung Dynasty (960-1278). Of the sixty reign titles of the eighteen emperors of this dynasty, both Northern and Southern Sung, twenty-nine are represented among the coins which have already been recovered. There is also a group of coins which bear the characters Wang Sung, Shêng Sung, and Ta Sung. These appeared along with coins bearing a reign title, and can also be fixed accurately in time, in these cases 1038-40, 1101 and 1226 respectively. The date of the coins covers the whole length of the Sung period, that is approximately three hundred years from the mid-tenth to the late thirteenth centuries. Besides Sung coins there is a small", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204506, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n123\n\ngroup belonging to the K'ai Yuan period of the Tang Dynasty (713-742), and a few other coins from the Tai P'ing period of the Liao Dynasty (Tartars) which date from 1020-1031. A find of T'ang coins in conjunction with Sung coins shows that the former were in circulation in late Sung times.\n\nUnfortunately, as I hinted at the beginning of this note, there is no doubt that the delay in reporting this find has led to the loss of the greater part of both coins and porcelain. To give a known instance, it was reported from Macau, after a newspaper man there had seen the official press release which appeared in the Hong Kong papers, that over 1,000 coins had been bought recently from Hong Kong by a curio merchant. There is little doubt that these coins also came from Shek Pik, since it was reported that the coins were all of the Sung Dynasty and were covered with earth, which showed that they had been recently excavated. Many other coins must also be in the possession of workmen on the site or in the hands of people to whom they have sold them. An attempt has been made to recover these by means of a letter to the Chief Resident Engineer, but there has been no response so far to the appeal, despite his ready assistance.\n\nThe same is true of the porcelain, of which there appears to have been some quantity. Not surprisingly, the bulldozers smashed the porcelain to pieces and scattered it over a wide area. Some of the broken pieces are in the hands of persons at Shek Pik; others are still buried under the earth moved by the bulldozers, which extends over several acres of hillside; and about a hundred small fragments were recovered by the Team from Shek Pik. Portions of about twenty pieces of porcelain have been recovered to date; very small for the most part but enough to show by colour and shape that they were part of different pots. These fragments are characterised by their fine colour, good shape and the thickness and brilliance of the glaze.\n\nTo which period can the find be attributed? The last reign date recovered so far is of the period 1241-1253, which brings us to within twenty-five years of the fall of the dynasty. In the normal course of events it would, I think, be unlikely for porcelain of this quality to be found on Lantau which, so far as we know, was at this time barely inhabited by a handful of Chinese peasants", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204602, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "72 \n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG \n\nChina hand' of great experience, and a man of forceful character, Sir Harry Parkes. His daughter, Marion, had accompanied him to Peking and in a letter to a friend wrote of the Minister's house:\n\nHow can I describe the house to you? It is so utterly unlike anything we have seen or lived in before. It really was originally a series of Chinese temples, and has been adapted for the use of Europeans by having odd little rooms built on, at odd and inconvenient corners. The entrance is very fine: first come two courts, with handsome red pillars; the carving and painting of the roofs is very picturesque and the colouring really beautiful. From the court you mount a flight of steps, and enter the hall, or Queen's room as it is called - her picture being there.\n\n車\n\nThe grounds here are small but very nice; each person has his little home, and it reminds me much of a cathedral close; it is very peaceful and quiet.\n\n+\n\n16\n\nIn the following year Parkes had to part with his daughter Marion when she was married in the Legation Chapel to James Keswick, a partner in the firm of Jardine, Matheson and Company, and at that time Chairman of the Municipal Council of Shanghai. In the Spring of 1885 Parkes was unwell and he died after a short illness, the only British Minister to die in harness in Peking. He drove himself too hard and died of overwork.\n\nThe life of a student-interpreter at this time has been well described in a book called Where Chineses Drive,16 which was published in 1885, the title being taken from Paradise Lost, Book III.\n\nThe author, W. H. Wilkinson, described the Legation as having a frontage along the Imperial canal of about three hundred yards, and continued:\n\nThe compound forms an oblong of which the shorter side is about one hundred and thirty yards long. On the north it is shut in by the Han-lin College; on the west for the greater part of its length by the Lüan-i K'u, or as we call it, the \"Imperial Carriage Park”. South of this, still on\n\n15 Quoted in Lane-Poole, op. cit., II, 368-9.\n\n16 \"Where Chineses Drive\". English Student-Life at Peking. By a Student Interpreter. (London, 1885). The name of the author does not appear on the book but Henri Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, I, 217, attributes it to W. H. Wilkinson.\n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204662, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\n129\n\nMany of the Chinese government's most ambitious plans are connected with the Yangtse. The bridge at Wuhan, first mooted in 1913, was completed in 1958 at a cost of $35,000,000, and after only two years and four months work. This is of double-deck construction, and 4,465 feet long. The lower level carries a double railroad track, and the upper level vehicle and pedestrian lanes. The bridge crosses the river just below Hankow, and is high enough to allow the largest ocean ships likely to call at Hankow to pass under all year round. Then there is the Three Gorges Dam project, between Ichang and Chungking. This is to provide hydro-electric power, flood control, irrigation, and to improve navigation. A much greater project is the plan to divert Upper Yangtse water into the Yellow River, and surveys have been made to see how much of the Yangtse's flow can be diverted for this purpose.\n\nAt present that part of North and North West China drained by the Yellow River has 51% of the cultivated land of China, but only 7% of the surface water flow; while the area around and south of the Yangtse with only 33% of the cultivated land has over 76% of the surface water flow. From these vast schemes under-way or planned, it is plain that in the future the Yangtse will play an even greater role in China's history than in the past.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204791, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "82 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nwas committed outside their shop. Fearing further complications, the brothers left their native village of Nam Ling Wai nearby, two of them going to Jamaica and the third to Peng Chau. The reason for his selecting Peng Chau is an interesting one. There had been difficulty in finding a bride with a suitable horoscope and a go-between in Yuen Long Market with contacts on Peng Chau had arranged his marriage with a girl of the LUI family. The family were not poor, and by the end of the century had secured a considerable area of fields on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau by giving mortgages to incautious or unlucky farmers. \n\nSome light on Peng Chau's development in the nineteenth century is given in the tablet commemorating the repairs made to the temple in 1878. Though the total number of subscribers is less than in the 1798 tablet — 181 instead of 218 — the number of shops is greater, and their locations specified. Fifty Peng Chau undertakings were listed, including one factory, though what manufacture it carried out is unknown. Some of the local shops listed on the tablet were quite large concerns by the end of the century. Among their number the San Tai Li business owned six or seven adjoining shops on the east side of Wing On Street, near the present ferry pier. It is said to have handled several lines of business including ship-chandlering and the production of sails and tackle, fishmongering and general dealings with fishermen, grocery and general goods and Chinese medicine. It also owned several junks for cargo and ferry purposes. A WONG of the third generation was managing its affairs in 1899, the business having been started by his grandfather, who was a Cantonese from Shun Tak district. Besides the shops, and the lime kilns, of which there were almost a dozen by 1904, there were at least two boat building and repair yards, and a business which specialised in beaching boats. \n\nThe repair tablet lists numerous outside subscribers, which indicates the business and social contacts which the island had with neighbouring areas. Eighteen Hong Kong businesses, including seven fish laans, and another seven shops from Shaukiwan, contributed to the fund, and so did shops from Tai Ping, Shek Wan and Kong Moon in the Pearl River Delta. A ferry boat business from Heung Shan, had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204838, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "116\n\nCRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD\n\nwhich lies in the mouth of the Pearl River estuary between Macao and Castle Peak on the opposite headland. However, during the south-west monsoons the anchorages of Kapsuimun門 pq 29, and Hong Kong were used because they provided greater protection. The Kapsuimun anchorage was situated south of Ma Wan island and sheltered to the west by the headland of Lantao and to the east by Tsing I island. Because of the smuggling of opium from depot ships at these outer anchorages the capabilities of the anchorages off Lantao island and between Hong Kong island and Kowloon on the mainland became thoroughly known to British merchants and sea captains. In 1835 a former member of the British East India Company published a book in which he advocated the need for Britain to obtain some island from which trade with China could be carried on because of the uncertain conditions of trade at Canton following the ending of the Company's monopoly30. In a review of this book published in the Chinese Repository the reviewer remarks on the fact that the author pressed the idea of Britain acquiring Macao from Portugal, which he considered ill-advised. He wrote\n\nThe want of a good harbour, and its dangerous position in the season of typhoons and strong north or east gales, unfit it for the possession of a commercial nation, as point d'appui. Lantao is better, and this we should prefer of the places named by our author. It is an island, capable of defence, producing abundant supplies of food, with many good harbours, is not so near the provincial city as to render it dangerous for natives to resort to it, for the purpose of commerce.31\n\nThus in 1835 Lantao was still considered eligible as a possible British settlement. In May 1839 the British Superintendent of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot, and all British subjects, left Canton as a result of the measures taken by the Imperial Commissioner Lin Tse-hsü, and retired to Macao. However, when in mid-August of 1839 the British were forced out of Macao by Chinese pressure it was to the anchorage of Hong Kong that the English ships went. Although Hong Kong was eventually ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking 1842 this had not always been an automatic choice, the possibility of forming a settlement on Formosa, the Bonin Islands, and on Ma Wan and Lantao island had previously been given serious consideration.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204927, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "28\n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING\n\ncoming away than in the beginning, at the multitude of the people. Certainly the truth exceedeth all hyperboles, not only in the cities, towns, and public places, but also in the highway there is as great a concourse as is usual in Europe on some great festival. And if we will refer ourselves to the general register book wherein only the common men are enrolled, leaving out women, children, eunuchs, professors of letters and arms, there are reckoned of them to be fifty-eight millions fifty-five thousand one hundred and four score.\" The minuteness of the enumeration would seem to shew that the father quoted some official Document.\n\nI forward herewith two Tabular Statements which I have copied from Dr. Williams' Middle Kingdom, one of the best books on China. The first (No. 1) gives a list of the various estimates from A.D. 1393 to 1812, with the authorities quoted. The second is a re-arranged statement of Censuses taken at different periods, (No. 2).\n\nAs there are few men in China more diligent or better instructed than Dr. Williams, I thought it desirable to communicate with him in order to ascertain his present views as to the credit which may properly be attached to the official statistics of China. I send copy of his letter, (No. 3).\n\nI do not know that there is any safer course than to reason from details to generals, from the known to the unknown; and I have taken every opportunity which my intercourse with the Chinese has afforded me, to obtain, if not correct, at least approximative, information as to the true Statistics of the country. It may be affirmed without any hesitation, that as regards the Five Ports and the adjacent districts, to which we have access, the population is so numerous as to furnish argument that the number of inhabitants of the entire Empire is very much greater than is represented by the official returns. These localities cannot be taken as fair averages; for, naturally enough, increased commercial activity has brought with it a flow of new settlers, and there can be no doubt that some of the ancient seats of commerce have lost much of their population in losing their trade; but whether all the causes of decline in particular spots have much counteracted the fecundity of the Chinese races considered as a whole, may well be questioned.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204940, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "THE POPULATION OF CHINA\n\n41\n\nno hereditary honours in China—except those which reckon upwards from the distinguished son to the father, the grandfather, and the whole line of ancestry, which may be ennobled by the literary or martial genius of a descendant—the distinctions of caste are unknown, and a successful student even of the lowest origin would be deemed a fit match for the most opulent and distinguished female in the community. The severe laws which prohibit marriages within certain degrees of affinity (they do not however interdict it with a deceased wife's sister) tend to make marriages more prolific and to produce a healthier race of children. So strong is the objection to the marriage of blood relations, that a man and woman of the same Sing or family name cannot lawfully wed.\n\nSoldiers and sailors are in no respect prevented from marrying. I expect there is from the number of male emigrants the greater loss of men by the various accidents of life abstraction in many circumstances from intercourse with women, a great disproportion between the sexes, tending naturally enough to the lower appreciation of woman; but correct statistics are wanting in this, as indeed in every other part of the field of enquiry.\n\nThe proportion of unmarried to married people is (as would be deduced from the foregoing observation) exceedingly small. To promote marriages seems everybody's affair. Matches and betrothals naturally enough occupy the attention of the young, but not less that of the middle-aged and the old. A marriage is the great event in the life of man or woman, and in China is associated with more of preliminary negotiations—ceremonials at different steps of the negotiations—written correspondence, visitings, protocols, and conventions than in any other part of the world.\n\nI am in hopes that we may be able to obtain the vital statistics of some given district, from which more accurate results might be deducted than are afforded by any existing data. I keep this object in view. I have the honour to be, sir, yours very faithfully.\n\nJOHN BOWRING.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204982, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 90, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n81\n\nThe pirates boarded the ship in Singapore along with the other passengers, and after taking over the ship took her to Bias Bay, where they made off ashore with over $100,000 in cash, and as much more in valuables. During the attack, the chief engineer, chief officer, and a Chinese quartermaster were killed, and the captain seriously injured. For some time after this, ships on this run were provided with guards from the British garrison at Hong Kong, and no piracy was ever attempted on any ship so guarded.\n\nThe piracy of the 4,500-ton Dutch motorship Van Heutz in December 1947 was notable for several reasons. It was the first serious piracy since the war, and the Van Heutz was the largest ship ever to be pirated on the coast. She left Hong Kong on 14th December for Amoy and Swatow with 1,600 deck passengers on board, repatriates from Indonesia, many with their life savings. The pirates, about twenty-five in all, captured the ship only four hours after she had left Hong Kong, and took her to Bias Bay. On arrival at Bias Bay they went ashore in commandeered junks, taking six wealthy Chinese passengers with them. During the few hours they had the ship, the passengers were robbed of cash and valuables worth more than $90,000, but the pirates were disappointed at not getting another $50,000 in currency which they believed was on board. On her previous trip when she had carried an even greater number of repatriates, the Van Heutz had had an armed guard of thirteen Dutch policemen. A few months after the piracy four men were arrested in Hong Kong, found guilty of being involved, and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.\n\nThese four cases conformed to the traditional twentieth century pattern, where the pirates boarded as passengers, and when the passengers were likely to be well provided with money and valuables. During these same years, however, there were other piracies which did not conform to this pattern - the Tungchow piracies of 1925 and 1935, the Nanchang's of 1933, and the Shuntien's of 1935. All took place in the north, and all the ships belonged to the China Navigation Company. The Tungchow shares the distinction with the Sunning of being the only ship in modern times to have been pirated twice. On the first occasion in December 1925 it occurred between Tientsin\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205062, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 18, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY\n\n13\n\nHis luck ran out, however, in 1807, when he was caught in a typhoon off Luzon. Part of his fleet was destroyed and Cheng himself drowned.\n\nLeadership of the pirate fleet fell to Cheng's wife, a kind of early nineteenth-century Dragon Lady, who may have accompanied her husband on his forays. Her chief lieutenant was a young Hsin Hui buccaneer by the name of Chang Pao-tsai. Unkind rumour had it that Chang was more than the lady's \"chief lieutenant\".\n\nUnder the leadership of Chang and the wife of Cheng I, the pirate fleet expanded its activities. It was divided into three divisions, each with a commander. Raids on coastal shipping were carried out with dispatch and precision, each division having been assigned specific areas of the coast. By 1810, Chang's fleet numbered six to seven hundred vessels, manned by as many as thirty to forty thousand men.\n\nNor were they concerned with just coastal shipping. No village or town along the coast was safe. Chang was apparently able to land elements of his navy at will at any bay or harbour from Mirs Bay to Hainan and as far up the river as Whampoa. There are differing accounts as to what his methods and motives really were. Some accounts, probably somewhat romanticized, make Chang out to be a kind of Chinese nautical Robin Hood, landing his men and appearing at village gates only to replenish their supplies of food and water, treating the people with kindness and honesty and refraining from terror. On the other hand, local histories record that more than one village was left in ashes and more than a little blood was spilled.\n\nWhatever way Chang Pao-tsai carried on his raids, the fact remains that the Ch'ing government was powerless against him. Time and again units of the Imperial fleet were sent in search of Chang's navy, only to return empty-handed and usually badly mauled. Once, in 1809, the Imperial navy did succeed in trapping a portion of Chang's fleet off Lantau, but clever seamanship and greater and more efficient firepower enabled him to break through without much damage.\n\nFinally, in 1810, the authorities resorted to the old political expedient... \"if you can't beat 'em, join 'em\". Governor-General", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205071, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "22\n\nJOHN J. NOLDE\n\npolitical chaos. Surely this was the major concern of the peasant, merchant, or fisherman who found himself and his property at the mercy of marauding bands of lawless men. And surely this was the main concern of officials at all levels, especially the high authorities in the city, who were faced with demotion, exile, or worse, if this trend should continue.\n\nNow, I would be the first to admit that this thesis is hard to prove. The official documents are not of much help, for no bureaucrat wants to bring matters of this kind to the attention of his superiors. Even the local gazetteers are not as helpful as one would think, for, after all, they were the work of a scholar-gentry class which had close ties to officialdom. Western accounts are unreliable for obvious reasons. Yet if this material is pieced together carefully and with imagination, I think it is possible to create a fairly accurate picture of what really happened.\n\nUltimately, this kind of history requires a certain intuitive sense, and this can come only from a personal awareness of the land and sea, the winds and tides, the people and their characteristics and peculiarities. This is why, as I have suggested in the first part of this article, a regional approach to Chinese history might be fruitful. All China is simply too big and variegated to lend itself easily, if at all, to this kind of awareness. But a smaller unit, with geographical, social, linguistic, and economic limits does so lend itself, if for no other reason than that the historian can bring all of it within his comprehension. Eventually we may acquire a greater insight into China's past by trying to construct total pictures of a series of small areas rather than a series of unconnected vignettes of a big area, simply because we can grasp all aspects of the former but only unrelated bits and pieces of the latter.\n\nHong Kong, especially, lends itself to this kind of approach. The land and its people are here to be studied. The Cantonese reaction to a certain type of situation is probably much the same as it would have been a hundred years ago. There exist scores of villages which have changed little since the 1830's and 1840's. Cooperative research by experts in several disciplines, using the pooled resources of the two universities, and with the help of Government, especially the Office of Chinese Affairs, could go far in the direction of creating a picture of the past which would be in many ways more accurate than the one now existing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205108, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n59\n\nand that the foreign country of Fu-lang itself did not arouse any curiosity among the writers. Europe, in any case during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, remained unknown to the Chinese. It was not until the arrival of the Portuguese, and, a little later, of the Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century that the two worlds were brought into closer contact. This relative disinterest in foreign countries is paralleled 100 years earlier by the poems of Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai. He had been in Khwarezmia (today Russian Turkestan) with Chingis Khan's armies and wrote a number of poems on Western subjects. If one would put it in a flippant way, one would have to say that Yeh-lü in his poems seems to have been impressed not by the proud mosques and the ancient culture of that region but mostly by the grape wine and the water melons that were grown in Khwarezmia.\n\nIf we take the word Western in a broader sense than just European and include the Near East, then we find for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries much more detailed information on \"Westerners\" and their influence on activities in China. Islamic civilization had some impact on China under the Mongols, and we have seen that certainly geography in China was flourishing, incorporating data on the non-Chinese world taken from Arab sources. The geographical interest of the Mongol court is also reflected in Kublai Khan's attempts to discover the sources of the Yellow River. Expeditions were sent and the reports that can be found in the dynastic history and also in another, private source the Cho-keng lu, printed in 1366 are a valuable source for the historical geography of the Ch'ing-hai region and Eastern Tibet. Islam had, of course, reached China much earlier, that is, under the T'ang in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., but it was under the Mongol rulers that Muslims began to take part in Chinese life to a greater extent. The Muslim contribution to Chinese civilization under the Yüan seems to have been chiefly in the fields of science. Astronomy was highly developed in the Islamic countries. After the Mongols had conquered Iraq and Persia, not a few Muslim scholars went to China. A center for astronomy was the observatory in Maraghah (Azerbaijan) founded in or about 1258. Under the Ilkhan Hulagu or his successor a Marāghah astronomer, Jamal ad-Din, was dispatched to China with what may be called blue-prints for astronomical instruments. We find their Persian-Arabic names and a short description of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205257, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "12\n\nPATRICIA MARSHALL\n\non the animals. Elephants and rhinos without food quickly left and with them many of the smaller animals. Much of the top soil disappeared. Without trees to hold it in place the rain washed the soil into rivers and out to sea.\n\nEven today a thousand years later the soil, flora and fauna have not recovered from the drastic deforestation carried out by the early settlers.\n\nA small fraction of the animals have been able to adapt themselves to this change in the vegetation. Of the seventeen orders of living placental mammals eight are represented today (see Table 1). There are insectivores such as shrews; a number of bats; at least one wild primate; pangolins; rodents which include rats, mice and porcupines; and a number of spectacular carnivores foxes, leopard-cats, otters and civets. There are also two hoofed animals, the wild boar and barking deer.\n\nPangolin\n\nThe most interesting local mammal is the pangolin (Plate 1). Pangolins have no near relatives but form an order of their own, the Pholidota. The back and tail of the pangolin is encased in scales which are modified hairs; and the skin of the face, belly and eyelids is thick to resist the stings of ants, bees and wasps. The claws are strong enough to dig through termite mounds and to demolish rotting tree trunks. The tongue is long and sticky for collecting termites and ant, bee or wasp larvae. The pangolin lives in a burrow, is nocturnal and is seldom seen, but it is fairly widespread in the Colony. A voracious destroyer of termites and pests it does much good and no harm to man.\n\nThe pangolin does not take well to captivity. It is almost impossible to provide it with sufficient termites or ant larvae. It cannot be weaned onto an alternative diet, and although it may eat custard or milk this will not maintain it. Within a few weeks a captive dies.\n\nPangolins brought to the Zoology Department of the University of Hong Kong are weighed, measured, marked and released in a suitable breeding area where others are known to be present. This is of far greater use to mankind than keeping them to die in captivity.\n\nCarnivores are the flesh eaters, and the most exclusively carnivorous of the carnivores is the tiger. Before 1940 tigers often", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205259, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 21, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "14\n\nPATRICIA MARSHALL\n\nhorses and hounds could not penetrate the shrub and the hunt club eventually gave up and was dissolved. Today local foxes face a greater peril; persistent hunting by illegal shooting and trapping. Each winter a number of young foxes, probably imported, are sold alive in the markets for food, despite Government's attempts to stop this trade.\n\nAnother mammal imported during the winter for food is the raccoon dog. It resembles the North American raccoon but in fact its nearest living relative is the domestic dog. It has never been recorded from Hong Kong but was common on the plains around Canton until at least 1914. In Russia it is encouraged and has been released in some areas to breed wild for fur. It is also useful as a destroyer of rats.\n\nIn Hong Kong this animal is often treated with extreme cruelty being confined in small cages, too small for it to stand or turn round, and may be kept for several days on food stalls before being killed and eaten. Until 1966 they were commonly seen in the markets of Hong Kong and Kowloon, particularly in Shanghai and Market streets. They now appear to be kept in backrooms and sold under the counter.\n\nA fairly abundant wild mammal in the Colony is the ferret-badger. It is a true badger, feeding on insects, earthworms, small rats and mice. Plate 4 shows the broken white markings on the head and back. Like the leopard cat, it is a retiring, nervous mammal prone to die of nervous shock in captivity, although it can be tamed if caught young.\n\nOtters were once common here but are now rare due to illegal hunting. Fishermen have always persecuted them, although the more informed are now realizing that otters in an area improve rather than harm the fishing. Research on the life history and feeding habits has shown that although otters eat fish, they eat only diseased fish. By controlling the numbers of the sick they prevent the spread of fish diseases and so are beneficial to the fish population.\n\nProtection by law of the otter (since 1938) has not been effective. If some otters were kept in a zoo or in the Botanical Gardens so that people may see how very charming and captivating they can be, a few of the poachers may be dissuaded from killing them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205299, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "54\n\nL. G. AUMER\n\nfrom piracy there. The mountains offered more security and this group established themselves in the remote Grass Field Village. In fact, this spot in the valley was then already occupied by people bearing the surname Ng. What form the contact between these original settlers and the intruders took is not clear, but evidently, as time passed by, the Ng were pushed off, and resettled themselves on an island in the Rocky Harbour area.11\n\nThe first Lau group in Grass Field Village seems to have constituted an extended family — one particular man is referred to as the founder of the village. He was of the 15th generation.12 The founder had two sons, one of whom moved out of the place and settled at Clear Water Bay. The progeny of the remaining son ramified in several offshoots. The village now consists of four hamlets inhabited by distinct lines of descent. Two branches have moved away to other areas; to Three Fathoms Cove in a northerly direction, and to the Yuen Long area in another part of the New Territories.\n\nThe Grass Field people, then, constitute a localized major lineage. As such they form part of a kin unit of a higher order, for which I would propose the designation 'clan'. In fact, a Grass Field villager is not usually able to establish his proper kinship relations with other villagers, at least not with those who are members of other main segments. In order to do this, he has to consult a kinsman with special knowledge or a genealogy book, which used to be kept in most villages. By these means he has a theoretical possibility to trace his actual relations through the genealogical links in the patrilineal line of descent. This will motivate the use of the term 'lineage'. The greater kin unit will, besides the Grass Field people, comprise the segments that resettled in other areas as well as the people living in the village of origin in Sai Kung, and the relatives, in all respects distant, in Mui Yuen in Kwangtung. Theoretically, other Lau descent lines, unknown to Grass Field people, would be included.\n\nBefore the Japanese Occupation fairly regular demonstration of kinship bonds took place when people from the Three Fathoms Cove and Clear Water Bay branches returned to Grass Field for common ancestor worship. There were, too, frequent contacts with the village of origin in China before the establishment of the People's Republic; delegates took part in ancestor worship", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205325, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "80\n\nTHE CHINA COASTERS\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nJames Matheson sent his San Sebastian from Canton to ports in Fukien Province in 1820, to open up new markets for opium, and this is generally considered the pioneer voyage in the China coast trade. Although Matheson was Danish Consul at Canton at this time, and the San Sebastian sailed under Spanish colours, it is correct to describe this voyage as a British venture. The men who sailed the opium clippers, therefore, were the first 'China coasters', and since that time 'China coasters' have considered themselves a breed apart, distinct from the rest of the British Merchant Navy. The tradition of more liberal manning, of better pay, food, and conditions in general, pioneered by the opium clippers has continued to the present day.\n\nMany of the customs and practices of the lordly East Indiamen and of the Indian 'country ships' were inherited by the humbler 'China coasters'. The East Indiaman's captain could, and was expected to, make a fortune from carrying passengers and private cargo, in addition to the company's, and in self defence the latter stipulated a definite scale of perquisites for each member of the crew, from captain down to bosun and carpenter. Generous as this was, it was invariably exceeded. There was a much greater variety of 'pidgin' (=business) on the China coast, although it did not comprise such a high proportion of the China coaster's total earnings. As on the East India Company's ships, dabbling in certain types of 'pidgin' was considered legitimate and carried no moral stigma.\n\nThe most common and profitable pidgin came from deck passengers. It was on the emigrant runs to the Straits and Bangkok that this type of 'pidgin' was most prolific. I was introduced to this on my first ship on the coast, the Antung. The Antung was\n\nThe author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtse in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Two of his articles have been published previously in the Journal. \"European Navigation on the Yangtse\" in Vol. 3, 1963, and \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205351, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 113, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "106\n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\nTo the North of Deep Bay is Chik-wan Bay, on the shore of which is situated the renowned temple of Tien-hau. To the South is the Bay of Toon-mun-wan, near Castle-peak. The open sea forms the Southern and Eastern boundary of the district.\n\nMirs Bay, the most remarkable of those which indent the Eastern shore of Sanon, is called by the Chinese \"Ti-po Hoi\" 大步海.\n\nIt is worthy of notice, that when the question of ceding Hong-kong to the British crown was brought before the Emperor Tau-kwang, it was asserted that the island had never really belonged to China; and it appears remarkable that, in an official geographical and statistical account of Sanon, in 8 volumes, published about 40 years ago, no mention of Hongkong is made, although islands much more insignificant are accurately included. However, in the list of villages of the Sanon District, the names of Shek-pai-wan (Aberdeen) and Check-chu (Stanley), are found. Among the numerous Straits between the different islands the most worthy of notice are:--\n\n1. The Cap-sui-mûn between Lantao and the two small Islands of Tsing-yeu and Ma-wan; Kai-check-mûn, between the two last mentioned islands and the mainland itself, and Ly-yue-mûn and East-tong-mûn, which constitute the Eastern passage from Hongkong harbour. According to Chinese authorities, the greater diameter of the district, from North to South, measures 380 le, and the lesser, from East to West, 270 le. But it must be remembered that the measurement from North to South extends to the southermost of the small islands which are reckoned as belonging to the district. The district is generally mountainous, and the mountain ridges extend nearly to the shore, leaving only small plains at their feet, which are occupied by villages and hamlets. These mountains have usually a dreary and barren aspect, and resemble those of Hong-kong and the opposite mainland. The granite rocks are scantily covered with soil, and are overgrown with grass. A luxuriant underwood is found in the ravines, but trees are seldom met with, though groves of them, evidently planted, are generally found in the neighbourhood of villages, Buddhist monasteries, and temples. The Chinese are accustomed to burn down the grass on the tops.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205392, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "SALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG\n\n \n Year\n Production\n Price etc.\n \n \n 1928\n \n \n \n \n 1929\n 10,200 piculs \"as against 18,000 piculs in 1928\"\n \n \n \n 1930\n 17,000 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1931\n 7,090 piculs.\n 12,760\n \n \n 1932\n Approximately 147 piculs, \"most of which was exported\"\n \n \n \n 1933\n 14,000 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1934\n 14,000 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1935\n 11,000 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1936\n 13,500 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1937\n 17,200 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1938\n 25,000 piculs.\n \n \n\nSalt pans did well; in some cases it is said the output was more than doubled, and it is certain that it was on the whole considerably increased.\n\nThe demand for salt was smaller than usual - a decrease which is probably due to the famine conditions prevailing in parts of China during the drought,\n\nA good year for salt pan owners. The serious decline in output is said to have been due to the heavy rains which fell throughout the summer and flooded the salt pans.\n\nThe salt pans did average business. The major portion of Tai O salt is exported to Chinese Territory and to Hong Kong,\n\nThe value declined from $13,000 to $10,000. The greater part was exported to Chinese Territory.\n\nThe price also fell to the very low figure of 63 cents a picul. The greater part was exported to Chinese Territory. The price also rose.\n\nPrices were well sustained.\n\nThe most successful local industry, the price also improving.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205396, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "SALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG\n\n151\n\nwell acquainted with the Hong Kong area, and never saw those remains. In Hoifung I did not find any furnace or anything which could be referred to an ancient salt industry. In China the manufacture of salt has been of the greatest importance from the most ancient time. In the salt-lake districts (Shansi, Shensi, Kansu and Mongolia) the heat of the sun causes the salt to crystallise at the edge of the lakes and in some cases on the surface of the water. In Yunnan and Szechwan the brine is drawn up from the salt-wells and boiled in cauldrons. Boiling is rare in other provinces. At the sea-coast the salt-pan system is generally in vogue.\n\nIn the last issue of the Hong Kong Naturalist (Vol. X, No. 1) Mr. S. Y. Lin has published a good article on salt manufacture in Hong Kong. In Hoifung both the leaching and the ordinary method are practiced; at the bay of Tchanki.... the former is more common, and at the bay of Swabue only the latter is in use. The salt produced by the leaching method is somewhat refined; it is freer from soil and in fine crystals and is required therefore for kitchen use; but its production needs much more work and its price is greater, too. The salt produced by the ordinary system is coarser and more impure and is chiefly used for pickling and salting fish. People say that the latter salt is more bitter than the former. If this statement is true we must suppose that the mother-water is more easily over-saturated in the ordinary salt-pan method, so that magnesium sulphate can be produced along with sodium chloride. As here the salt season is principally in the dry autumn and winter and from mother-water saturated at over than 32°5 Baumé during cool nights the magnesium sulphate easily crystallises, likely much of our salt is really a mixed-salt.\n\nNowhere in our province, as far as I know, the boiling system is now in use, except occasionally by boat-men when it is impossible to buy salt. Here fuel is very expensive and scarcely sufficient for domestic purposes. Moreover, I note that on the granitic rocks at the sea-shore salt easily crystallises; ancient people may have collected it and so learned how to manufacture salt. Even at the present time some people gather salt by sweeping it from the rocks. However, the note of Dr. Heanley suggests a new field of research; indeed, many of our prehistoric sites are near modern salines or in a good position for salt-works.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205423, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "178\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nmeaning in Chinese because they are Chinese transliterations of foreign names of musical tunes.\n\nThis book helps to dispel this illusory legend. Chinese have not been impervious to foreign culture but have been inclined to digest and modify it to suit their own needs. Buddhism was at first studied under the aegis of Taoism; but when Buddhism was domesticated, then it started not only to influence Taoism but even Confucianism. Chinese culture is not so monolithic and static as many think or wish it to be.\n\nAnother significant point is that the Chinese know how and what to introduce, adopt and develop. Both Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism were introduced. But Mahayana had a greater appeal to the Chinese mentality and the Chinese developed the Mahayana, almost to the exclusion of Hinayana. Hence Mahayana has been best and most brilliantly developed in China, of all the Buddhistic countries. Tantrayana was introduced but it never flourished and, being frowned upon, soon died out. We can say that the Chinese developed Buddhism along the philosophical and intellectual line and kept to its 'sound and pristine health' without aberrations. Of course, there are ignorant, superstitious believers, and unscrupulous, crafty superstition-mongers who exploit the stupid and credulous, but they are not true Buddhists and even they never degenerate into Sivaism.\n\nChina in this discussion refers, of course, to China Proper. Our author, using China to mean the Chinese Empire (and later, Republic), includes an account of Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia where Tantrism and even Sivaism flourished and Mahayana was non-existent.\n\nThe book is specially recommended to all cultured readers who wish to get acquainted with a fascinating subject and the interesting and instructive cultural and historical phenomena of an extensive area over a period of 2000 years.\n\nTSUNG-HAN YANG\n\nANNUAL CUSTOMS AND FESTIVALS IN PEKING as recorded in the Yen-ching Sui-shih-chi, by TUN LI-CHEN, translated and annotated by Derk Bodde (Professor of Chinese, University of Pennsylvania). Second Edition (revised) of the first edition published by Henri Vetch, Peiping 1936. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong 1965, pp. xxviii, 147, HK$35.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205513, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "50\n\nT. J. LINDSAY\n\nhad been borne out by facts. We have also drawn attention to the improbability that magnificent vessels like the Sterling Castle could be run all the year round on the London and China line, and yet show satisfactory returns.\n\n\"To the Blue-Funnel steamer owners belong the credit of being the first to venture upon a big steamer-carrying enterprise to this part of the world; at that time, when the finest sailing vessels in the world had to be competed with on the Cape route, economy was of more importance than speed.\n\n\"With the ever-recurring annual race Home with Teas came the renewed desire to be first in point of time; and for several years the red-funnelled \"Glens” had it all their own way, until last year, when the fast and powerful Sterling Castle appeared on the scene and reduced the previous time records by a third. Both here and at Home the Sterling has evoked the admiration of all classes, and she has been freely spoken of as the fastest merchant steamer afloat, although, until she is tried against the Atlantic liners on their own route, it can hardly be said that she is the strongest and most powerful yet built.\n\n\"The latest boat built for the Glen line [the Glenogle] is a vessel the like of which is seldom seen. She is certainly the largest carrying vessel that has ever been on the line, and for power she may be fairly set down as second to her Castle rival. While the Sterling has an indicated horse-power of 8,000 and the Glenogle indicates only 6,000 horse, the Glen steamer carries 6,000 tons of measurement cargo - a capacity which is greater than the Castle steamer, owing to the much larger space occupied in the more powerful vessel by the inevitable boilers and bunkers. In the important test which is applied to such coal-consuming giants, of running a moderate speed upon a reduced consumption of coal, the Glenogle appears to have fully realised all anticipations. At her full speed it is stated she consumes 120 tons of coal per day (she has bunker capacity for 1598 tons or 133 days) with her four boilers going, and her extreme speed is, say 16 knots, while she has accomplished an average speed of 11½ knots upon a consumption of 37 tons per day. The extreme speed of the Sterling Castle, which may be put down at 19 knots under the most favourable circumstances, is obtained by the daily consumption of 150 tons of coal; but how far the speed and consumption can be modified, we are yet unable to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205573, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 115, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "110\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR,\n\nno comparisons of historical references or reflections of the kind that are made after national unification which might mirror both the satisfaction of success and the new brand of problems and frustrations that follow. Finally, in terms of impact on the Chinese people as a whole, it must be conceded that Mao Tse-tung, and his references to Chinese history, is of a greater order. This last point is important, I should think, in terms of the over-all significance of such a study. Nevertheless, it is Sun Yat-sen we are assigned to deal with, and as we have already acknowledged, keeping our qualification in mind, this exploration might well be of some use in its own right.\n\nSun Yat-sen is a fascinatingly paradoxical personality. He certainly enjoys an enviable position in history. Despite much politically naive and compromising activity on his part in his day he uniquely commands the continued respect of Chinese of all political persuasions in our day. This is not to underestimate Sun's vital role, for there should be little doubt but that he constituted for a critical period a persevering, idealistic and positive symbol around which a people trying to find nationhood, political unity and liberation from imperialistic bondage might rally. And the symbol continues today for many Chinese to represent something that might yet be, however hopeless the prospects seem. Such was the magnetism and the inspirational optimism generated by this remarkable man. Of course, his sanctification by the Nationalists has had something to do with the general absence of critical Chinese attention. But aside from such officially-imposed restraint there persists, even among normally critical-minded and politically non-involved Chinese scholars, an intriguing propensity to view Sun through mercifully rose-colored glasses, and to give his writings unmistakably charitable readings.\n\nThis instinctively favorable image of Sun extends to his knowledge of Chinese history as well. Yet this is an aspect of Sun's career that requires some working at, for Sun's historical knowledge, and the means by which he attained it are not exactly self-evident. One distinguished contemporary Chinese historian, currently residing in Hong Kong, explains that soon after Sun had returned from Honolulu, he retained a good tutor to coach him in Chinese history and literature. This same informant continues with this anecdotal story. While at the Canton Hospital School, Sun kept a full set of the twenty-four dynastic histories in his room.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205587, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "124\n\nH. G. H. NELSON\n\ntional Chinese rules of inheritance ensured the rapid redistribution of any accumulation of property. Estates could be created only by the injection of external capital derived from bureaucratic or commercial activity; and they were maintained by this device of incorporating them as collective holdings. Naturally enough, the ancestor in whose name an estate was incorporated was rarely, if ever, more remote than the father of the man who actually accumulated the land, so that no-one but his own and his brothers' sons and their descendants ever enjoyed the benefits of the property.\n\nEven if estates were concentrated in the hands of local, and not absentee landlords, the capital which created them was derived from external sources: and it may well be that the Treaty Ports stimulated this form of land-concentration by providing opportunities for the accumulation of capital on a greater scale than had ever been known before. There is evidence that this has happened in the New Territories: local men who prospered in business activities in Hong Kong city returned to their homes and invested the proceeds in land. It would have been instructive if Potter had told us exactly how Tang Jui-t'ai, ancestor G in the diagram, was able to accumulate his property. (It is not clear from the book whether he used the schedules of holdings drawn up in respect of private property by the Hong Kong Government a few years after the lease of the N.T. in 1898 which provide a unique source of socio-economic information about its many villages and form a base for later enquiries).*\n\nIt is worth commenting, in passing, on another feature of the lineage's collective land-holdings, in which it is possible to see an exacerbation of the pre-existing situation. From Potter's description of the private benefits accruing to members of the corporation who are in a position to exploit their control of the land, it is quite clear that by far the majority of the benefits go to a small group of powerful men - political leaders and racketeers: and the poorer villagers, even if they know of this manipulation of property in which they, rightfully, have as good a share, can do little about it. Potter himself points out that this was probably always so, but that it is only recently that economic conditions — i.e. the enormous increase in land values and rents — have allowed such great profits to be made.\n\n* These have been utilised by Göran Aijmer in his article between pp.74-81. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205641, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "178\n\nTHE LIBRARY OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH, ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nH. A. RYDINGS (Honorary Librarian)\n\nSince the revival of the Hong Kong Branch in 1959, an effort has been made to build up a library for the use of members, with particular reference to materials on South China and Hong Kong. Some members have kindly donated books, and in 1964 the Asia Foundation made a generous gift of HK$2,850 for the purchase of books. The greater part of this has been spent on the rarer works of local interest, which members would otherwise find it difficult to obtain or consult. The Journal of the Branch has been sent in exchange to various other institutions and societies, by which means a useful collection of their journals has been acquired. In all, the library of the Branch now contains nearly 300 volumes, including periodicals and pamphlets.\n\nBy kind permission of the British Council Representative, a selection of these books is now located at the British Council Library in the Gloucester Building, where Members will be able to consult them, and borrow any volumes which are not marked for reference only. The remainder of the books belonging to the Hong Kong Branch are at present located in the Library of the University of Hong Kong, where they may be consulted by Members on application to the Librarian. These are the rarer books, and those not likely to be in great demand, which are available for reference only. Rules for the use of the Library, together with a preliminary list of its contents, have been distributed to Members.\n\nIt is much to be desired that the Hong Kong Branch may have its own premises, where the whole library collection may be kept together. The University Library, where all the books were previously located, is too inconvenient of access to most members, whilst the British Council Library has its own problems of limited accommodation. Meanwhile, the present division of the books between the two locations, whilst in many ways unsatisfactory, is the best that can be arranged.\n\nAn author catalogue of the books has been compiled on cards, and is available at the British Council Library. The following list, which includes all the books and pamphlets received for the library", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205718, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 24, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "18\n\nT. C. CHENG\n\nwatchmen being paid for with subscriptions from the Chinese community.* In 1893 a District Watch Force Committee was formed with the Registrar General (Protector of Chinese) as Chairman, and from that time onwards up to 1941 many prominent Chinese leaders served on that Committee. Indeed, for many years, it was more or less a tradition for prominent Chinese who wished to render public service to the Colony to begin their public career with this Committee and then, in the case of those who had a knowledge of English, to proceed to the Sanitary Board (which was replaced by the Urban Council in 1935) and thence to the Legislative Council.\n\nFor some years Wei Yuk was more or less an unofficial liaison officer between Hong Kong and the Manchu Government, and the latter was indebted to him in no small degree for the assistance he rendered in bringing to justice Chinese criminals who had fled from Chinese territory to Hong Kong. He was so respected by the Chinese in South China that, following the successful revolution in 1911, when Admiral Li Tsun, Commander of the Chinese Imperial Naval Detachments of Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces, declared his surrender to the revolutionary forces directed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen's deputy, Hu Han-min from Hong Kong, Mr. Wei Yuk was asked to act as the guarantor of good faith on both sides!\n\nIn 1894, a fierce bubonic plague broke out in Hong Kong which accounted for over 2,000 deaths mainly in the oldest Chinese section of Hong Kong, viz., Tai Ping Shan (the present Po Hing Fong). In 1896 and subsequent years the plague recurred to a greater or less degree every spring. As there was little scientific knowledge of the plague and as there was no western treatment for this, Government decided to take drastic measures including the cleansing and disinfecting of infected areas, compulsory removal of the sick and house-to-house visitation carried out generally by the military. As it was very un-Chinese to allow sick parents or relatives to be removed from their homes to die in strange hospital rooms, and as the Chinese looked upon house visitation as interference and intrusion upon their privacy and personal liberty, they adopted an attitude of passive resistance and often hid away the dead and the sick. Wei Yuk was able to do\n\nSee chapter 4, \"District Watchmen\" of Regulation of Chinese Ordinance, No. 13 of 1888.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205759, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n59\n\npart of further studies of militia, both within Kwangtung Province and elsewhere in China. It is possible that the approach to militia used in this article could be applied to other, more significant, military organizations as they existed in nineteenth century China. For example, recent studies of the regional armies of Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang indicate that they were, initially, amalgamations of local militia forces.78 A more detailed analysis of these militia could contribute to a greater understanding of the particularistic relationships which appear to have been important in maintaining regional armies as viable organizations over relatively long periods of time.\n\nNOTES\n\nThis article is based upon research in Hong Kong between 1963 and 1965. I am grateful for the financial support provided by the London-Cornell Project for East and South-East Asian Studies. A number of colleagues have commented upon the subject matter of the article during its various stages of preparation. I would particularly like to thank the following for their advice: Dr. Christopher Turner, Dr. George C. Bond, Mr. James Hayes, Professor Maurice Freedman, and Professor Göran Aijmer. A draft of the paper was read to the Sociology Seminar, School of Social Studies, University of East Anglia. I am grateful to my colleagues in this context for their comments. Place names will be rendered according to A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories, Hong Kong Government Printer, Hong Kong, n.d., but published 1960.\n\n2 Brine, Lindesay. The Taeping Rebellion in China: A Narrative of its Rise and Progress. London, 1862, pp. 11-12.\n\n3 Krone, [R]. “A Notice of the Sanon District\", Article V, Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, pt. VI, Hong Kong, 1859, p. 71.\n\n4 Freedman, Maurice. Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London, 1966, p. 115.\n\n5 The Governor of Hong Kong, commenting upon robbery and piracy during the year 1903, said: \"they are the most common offences in the Southern provinces ... the Provincial Authorities do not attempt to deal with such cases until some village is reported as being specially notorious as harbouring robbers, when, if the authorities do not consider them too strong, a force is sent out and as many as possible arrested or the village destroyed.\" Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1903, Hong Kong, 1904, pp. 348 ff.\n\nFreedman, op. cit., p. 112, quotes an account of such an expedition which took place in \"about 1870\" and resulted in the beheading of more than a thousand people.\n\n6 Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960, p. 503.\n\n7 For a detailed account of these events, see: Wakeman, Jr., Frederic, Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205803, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MING DYNASTY 'MOUNTAIN SONGS'\n\n103\n\nwritten by the literati rhymed often by academic fiat rather than in accordance with actual dialect pronunciations and the conversational styles which we know must have been spoken at the time.\n\nThis is not entirely the case since in the verses of the classical poets we often find deviation from the patterns of the rhyming dictionaries. Still the norm held true to the accepted versions, and as time passed the accepted version remained relatively stable while the living language went through a series of sound changes. There is even reason to assume that the earliest rhyming dictionaries may have preserved archaisms or dialect pronunciations, or otherwise mixed the information in a way that would complicate Karlgren's Ancient Chinese. For example, we know from the preface to the Ch'ieh Yün that this important rhyming dictionary was the product of an informal committee composed of members who represented several regional dialects. Presumably a situation like that might lead to a levelling process and the final results might be to some extent an overall pattern of several speech forms rather than a consistent recording of a single dialect.\n\nIn summary, the first proposition is that Ancient Chinese as now reconstructed should be paired with a proto-Chinese developed by the comparative method of modern linguistics. One can look forward to the time when the necessary spoken language data will be gathered and the preliminary reconstructions of individual Chinese proto-dialects will be completed. The second proposition is that the standard rhyming dictionaries can be expected to diverge in greater or lesser degree from any standard spoken language of their time. This second point suggests to the linguist that an ideal target for research might be poetry outside the intellectual, classical tradition. In other words, we can look to folk poetry since in that genre we will more likely be dealing with colloquial rhymes having no reference to the educated patterns of the rhyming dictionaries. This type of poetry would provide rhymes which are so useful in reconstructing earlier forms of Chinese, yet it would be much less likely to present some of the problems of the more artificial rhyming dictionaries. It is a safe assumption that original folk poetry would represent the everyday speech of the area from which it comes rather than any prestige second language of the educated class.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205817, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "CHINESE DESCENT SYSTEM\n\n117\n\nhad at least two houses already, and were usually expanding their land holdings at the same time. I have genealogical information on about two-thirds of the house-buyers, and only in two cases does it seem possible that the number of their sons induced men to buy \"houses\" (both were in fact ruins, on the sites of which the buyers later rebuilt). There is thus no strong evidence that the buying and selling of houses is in any way connected with family size: houses appear rather to be treated as an investment in very much the same way as land.\n\nThe paradox of the simultaneous existence of a moral prohibition on the sale of houses and its occurrence on even the scale described may be partially resolved by the fact that different houses seem to be differently regarded. The strongest attachment is felt to houses which have been lived in by and inherited from one's ancestors: houses acquired in other ways are less valued, and a significant proportion of the house-sales recorded are resales of houses bought either shortly, or in one case as much as fifty-two years, earlier.\n\nb) Renting and Borrowing\n\nI have no evidence on the frequency of renting or loan arrangements between villagers in the past, but at present there are scarcely any cases; a lack which I put down to a dislike of the insecurity of renting (as well as its cost), and the much greater prestige of living in one's own house. I only know of one house in Sheung Tsuen which was rented for a long term by a very poor widow from a wealthy neighbour; of one case in which a woman who was rebuilding the family house was allowed by a neighbour to borrow an empty house while the building was going on; and of a third case where a young man, too deranged to hold down any job for long, and too weak physically to farm, was turned out by his father, and allowed by an older uncle to live in a tumbledown shed whose owner had long since left for England.\n\nThere is a sense in which a man's retirement begins as soon as his sons start to marry: once he has moved out of the house with the ancestral tablet, a man is something of a lodger in the village. While most parents have another house into which they can move on the marriage of their son(s), I have the impression (though no actual cases to back this up) that it would be relatively", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205826, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "126\n\nARMANDO DA SILVA\n\nThe large leaves of this plant reputedly have healing qualities that arrest the growth of leprous sores.\n\nVillagers are very conscious of some plants that can, if necessary, be eaten without ill effects, the so-called famine foods. Wild plants are classified into shoh (#) covering edible plants in general, and sut (†) a term describing wild medicinal plants. The distinguishing line between these two is hard to define as many medicinal plants are suspected of being famine foods to which are attributed tonic qualities. Their leaves, stalks, or succulent sections are usually added to soup or congee to impart taste and body. An example of a famine food is the pulpy fruit of Rhodomyrtus tomentosa. In August and September this shrub yields a sweet purple fruit which is picked and eaten. The local name for the fruit is kong ním (¥) but its other name of pei kwan kong (¤) meaning \"the berry that one eats when fleeing from soldiers\" strongly suggests that it is indeed one of many famine foods of this area.3\n\nTo keep insects from ruining crops, village cultivators often use insecticides derived from plants. A rotenone extract, injurious to insects but not to man, is derived from the tuber roots of Derris trifoliata, called locally tuk yue tung (“fish poison vine\"). The insecticide extract is diluted in water and sprinkled on crops, particularly the leaves of the sweet potato.4\n\nThe castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, called pei ma (¦) is a plant that was formerly widely used by villagers. The seeds were crushed to make an illuminant oil, and the leaves are still used as poultice for foot sores. It is still a common plant about villages. Most non-economic medicinal plants associated with home remedy are usually regarded as communal property. While these plants are not specifically protected by the villagers, neither are they uprooted without cause. Thus the castor oil plant exists because some of the more conservative villagers still rely on it to supply leaf poultices for leg sores.\n\nMany older villagers still place a greater reliance on plant medicine than on patent medicine and pills. Again for this reason, many plants that to outsiders seem of no useful significance are tolerated, though not purposefully cultivated for their curative qualities. The god of medicinal plants, Shun Nung (µ) is honoured on Chinese New Year when bits of red paper or cloth", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205846, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "146\n\nRONALD C. Y. NG\n\nthe immediate vicinity of the well recognized market towns. The other important factor is probably related to the state of law and order in some of the outlying areas during this period of China's internal upheaval. The complacent mandarin in San On Un would most likely have left Lantau and its adjacent islands to the unlawful elements and concentrated instead on the places with overland contact. In view of the notorious history of piracy on these islands, which were ideally situated in relation to the trade routes focusing on and weaving between the flourishing ports of Portuguese Macau, British Victoria and Chinese Canton, the officials in Nam-tau-shing, the administrative seat of San On district, would have been unable to render the priest much protection had he ventured to these parts. Volonteri, however, was not wanting in courage and in spirit of adventure, but the pirates of the Pearl River estuary were very different men from those he encountered in Swabue, on whom he had written, 'the pirates seem to fear the humble priest and not the priest the pirates; they make some rare appearances but the presence of the padre impels them to retreat at once'. How far this can account for the comparatively poor outline and incorrect location of the off-shore islands as well as for the lack of information on the settlements there must await fresh materials on Volonteri's work in San On, but the villagers on Lantau vouchsafed to me that in the time of their forefathers, piracy, preying on ships and peasants alike, was a greater hazard to the population than the vagrant weather conditions.\n\nFinally, the bilingual feature of the map must be noted. It is apparent that the document was intended primarily for English-speaking users. As there are several current systems of transliteration, in the present case the one based on Williams' Dictionary, the inclusion of the original Chinese names adds to the work that rare, but highly desirable, quality of precision and refinement. In a way, the document is simultaneously a map and a gazetteer of the District. The degree of cooperation between Volonteri and Liang was remarkable and out of the hundreds of villages cited bilingually there was not a single occasion where the name in one language did not correspond to the other. This is probably due to Fr. Volonteri's ability to read, perhaps not so much as to write presentably, the Chinese script which enabled him to check every detail. Credit should also go to his colleague for juxtaposing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205870, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "170\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nJapanese villages, Mexican villages and, indeed, European villages. It is precisely through looking for parallels and differences in social structure (despite what might be great differences in culture) that generalizations about the village as a form of social organization and human association may in fact be forthcoming.\n\nWhat would seem to be required now is a two-fold effort in which the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society might fruitfully participate. The first effort should be the accumulation of data in archival form which would be available to scholars in Hong Kong to use for comparative purposes. This archival effort would have to be well enough subsidized to be able to reproduce and store data, the original copies of which no author would willingly leave behind.\n\nThe second effort usefully could be a conference of people actively involved or likely to be involved in research about Hong Kong villages (or indeed any villages) in which discussions could be held concerning what current researchers in the field think are the major issues and research problems. Perhaps through this conference a programmatic series of research efforts, which would have greater final scientific value than any single research effort could have, would be forthcoming.\n\nOpen-ended books like Mr. Baker's can help to stimulate thinking of this kind and as a consequence must be rated as both useful and important.\n\nSTRANGERS AT THE GATE, SOCIAL DISORDER IN SOUTH CHINA, 1839-1861. Frederic Wakeman, Jr., University of California Press, 1966, pp. 276, US$6.\n\nThis fairly short book provides a narrative of the main events of twenty-three years of British dealings with Canton and Kwang-\n\n11 The Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, has recently begun such a project. A conference has been held in which problems of research have been discussed: this is a hopeful beginning. It may be further aided by the forthcoming publication of a new bibliography of materials about Hong Kong, to be published shortly by the Department of Extramural Studies, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\nEditor's note: the proceedings of the conference mentioned in Dr. Berkowitz's note 11 have now been published. See Marjorie Topley (compiler) Anthropology and Sociology in Hong Kong. Field Projects and Problems of Overseas Scholars. Hong Kong, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1969.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205983, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "58\n\nLAMARR B. TROTT\n\ncrustaceans, 3% squids, and 1% other marine animals. To catch this amount, 56,000 local fishermen worked 6,800 fishing vessels and this does not include the catches sold by fishermen based in other localities than Hong Kong. Half of the yield every year is supplied by trawling vessels, while long line, purse seining, and gill netting techniques are of less importance. A modernization of equipment, enabling trawlers and long line vessels to go farther afield for their catches will increase the yield and make Hong Kong more self-sufficient. This process is gradually taking place, but needs speedier implementation,\n\nMarine Conditions in General\n\nFor a background of conditions existing in Hong Kong, let us first look at the marine environment in general, and in other areas of the world. When one first observes the sea in a tropical climate, he is immediately aware of a tremendous diversity of organisms. The tropics, both on land and in the sea, is a plethora of bizarre and varied living forms. It is a well-known biological fact that although the absolute number of individuals present in a tropical vs. a temperate area may be the same, the number of species is far greater in the tropics*. \n\nThe most important factor in determining the distribution of biological forms, therefore, appears to be temperature. Many marine organisms are definitely limited by temperature, and corals which are exclusively marine are an excellent example. Reef-building corals usually exist only in a wide tropical belt in which the temperature does not fall below 20°C for any long period during the year. Another important physico-chemical factor is salinity, or saltiness of the water. Salinity is actually a measure of all the salts in the water, although the major one is sodium chloride. The actual amount of salt determines the biologically important osmotic pressure and thus is often a limiting factor. Take echinoderms, like starfishes, sea urchins and the like; they are strictly marine, and are not even found in moderately brackish water. Other forms, called chaetognaths, or arrow worms, are so narrowly tolerant of change in salt content that one can tell the saltiness of the water by what species of\n\n* Mayr, 1963.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206073, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "148\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nthey made the primitive links in the chain of commerce before the foreign traders from India and Persia arrived about the 4th century A.D. In the present state of archaeological knowledge we do not know how far east this early trade route spread. It may have linked up Japan and Korea for instance. It seems certain that it spread to the Tonkin delta, down the coast of Annam and possibly to Malaya, Java and Sumatra. Very likely, also, is the existence of the trade routes inland by the great rivers throughout South China and Tonkin. There is unfortunately no Chinese historical record of this trade.\n\nThe Chinese accounts of aboriginal life in South China are very indefinite and unsatisfactory. In very early times (in the book of Chuang Tzŭ and the Book of Rites) the South of China was called Nan Yüeh or South of the Mountain Barrier. Texts of the Han dynasty give in greater detail the geographical divisions of the coast. The South of Fukien was called Ou, Fukien Min Yüeh, Kwangtung and Kwangsi South Yüeh and the western part of Kwangsi with the Tonkin delta Lo Yüeh or Ou Lo. These divisions cannot be taken as based on any real knowledge of racial distinctions. A few texts give us a meagre description of the natives. The Han history describes the inhabitants of Min Yüeh as \"cutting the hair short, tattooing the body, possessing neither towns nor villages but living in valleys of bamboo, expert at fighting on the water but of no use on land, having neither chariots nor horses nor bows and arrows.\" We also know that in 180 B.C. Chinese traders were forbidden to sell iron to the natives of South Yüeh which indicates that they were using stone weapons. Another text of the Han history connects the people of South Yüeh with those of Lo Yüeh or Tonkin by saying that \"they are both of the Mi tribe\". It is tantalising that in spite of much account of battles and biographies of chieftains the Chinese historians have left no real description of aboriginal life. Such was their dislike of barbarians that they either ignored them completely or wrote about them as if they were pure Chinese.\n\nAccording to the San On topography the tribe of Yao, a people of Sino-Tibetan stock affiliated to the Miao, existed to the north of our region some 200 years ago. They live now in Kwangtung and Kwangsi besides other places such as Hainan Island. They tattoo their bodies and use stone implements. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206088, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH\n\n163\n\nTung Kun district, Heung Shan, and Kwangsi. Two brothers of the eldest branch remained in Tung Kun, of their cousins one received lands in P'ing Shan next to Kam T'in and another Tang Yuan Liang succeeded to Kam T'in and to a place called Lung Yeuk T'au in our region, besides lands at Tung Kun,\n\nThis Tang Yuan Liang led the spacious life that might be expected of a man of widely extended property. He is buried in Tung Kun, but his family lived in Kam T'in and he himself was appointed an official in Kiangsi, near to the original home of his ancestors. His power over all this area was the greater because the Sung dynasty during his time was hard pressed by the Tartars. Tang Yuan Liang had established a kind of outpost in Kiangsi behind which he and his family governed a more or less independent region, officially loyal to the Sung dynasty, but in reality ready to take advantage of its misfortunes.\n\nIn 1127 the Emperor's family was captured, but one daughter of the royal house escaped as far as Tang Yuan Liang's outposts, where she was taken charge of and sent half captive half refugee to Kam T'in where she married Yuan Liang's son. When the Tartars were driven back, her father became the Emperor Kao Tsung of Sung. He recognised the marriage, received the princess and her husband Tssŭ Ming at the capital, and gave him an official title. The family received a large dowry, tax collecting rights and the monopoly of the ferries in Tung Kun district.\n\nThe four main centres of the Tang clan at present are Kam T'in, Ping Shan, Lung Yeuk T'au and Ha Tsün. We have already mentioned that one of the \"five Yuans\" received lands in P'ing Shan. The present Tangs of P'ing Shan are descended from him and are therefore probably the eldest branch in direct descent. The settlement at Lung Yeuk Tau also dates from one of the “five Yuans\", that of Ha Tsün appears to be much later though directly descended from the great grandson of Tssŭ Ming and the princess, a man called Shou Tsu who lived in the Yuan dynasty and appears to have been the first of the Tangs to settle permanently at Kam T'in, instead of in Tung Kun district where his ancestors had lived. These four centres can be seen on the attached map (See T'ien Hsia, Vol. XI, No. 4).*\n\nIt will be noticed that they contain many adjacent walled villages due chiefly to the fact that their houses\n\n*Plate 16 at end of this volume.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206103, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "178\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nthat the Hakka immigration embraces a wide area north and east of our region and several islands. In some cases old Punti villages have entirely disappeared but the land then cultivated has been taken up by Hakka who have built their own houses. In others Hakka have entirely superseded the Punti after a period during which they shared villages. It seems most probable that the evacuation gave to the Hakkas an unexpected chance of taking up land in the places where it had been abandoned.\n\nThe return from evacuation was allowed partly because it had led to greater disturbance than before and partly because of the loss in taxes, which was estimated at 300,000 taels. The first to suggest it was the Hsün Fu or Inspector-General Wang, part of whose petition has already been quoted. The result of his outspoken criticism was that he was disgraced and ordered to return to Peking. He did not do so and died, probably by suicide, in Kwangtung after writing a valedictory address to the Emperor in which he stated as a dying request that the people be allowed to return to their homes. Wang is worshipped in this region and with him the Viceroy of Kwangtung, Chou, who personally inspected the situation in the winter of 1668 and petitioned that the boundary be removed before the fortifications were completed instead of after as had been previously decided, owing to the distress of the inhabitants. Two months later this was allowed.\n\nThe fortifications alluded to have all disappeared. They should not be confused with the more modern Chinese forts which can be seen here and there in the region. The fort at Kowloon was built in 1810 and the present city walls only in 1856. The fort at Tung Ch'ung, which is one of the best preserved, dates from 1817 as does the one at Kai Yik Kok on the south western tip of Lantau*. The reason given for the building of these forts was to protect the coast against foreigners.\n\nPiracy continued to be practised by the Tanka during the intervening centuries. A few of the pirates' names are preserved in the \"Salt Water Songs\" which the Tanka sing in their anchorages. One of these is about a woman pirate, called Cheng I\n\n* But see, for the Kai Yik Kok fort, Armando da Silva's recent article \"Fan Lau and its Fort: An Historical Perspective\" in this Journal Vol. 8, (1968) pp. 82-95. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206111, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "186\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nthe small pre-war Yuk Wong (or Jade King) Temple, recently reconstructed, and to some open ground now occupied by a theatrical matshed erected for the Tam Kung festival where Wai Chau and Cantonese opera will be performed for the traditional five nights and four days. This is organised by the people of Ah Kung Ngam, and a small booth on the left-hand side of the road (going in) is plastered with large sheets of orange paper on which the names of all subscribers to this free opera have been written. Up to the war of 1941 and again after the Liberation, up to 13 years ago, my local informants say that puppet plays were held here, but the greater resources of a larger population have now enabled the local people to have opera troupes instead. Both Wai Chau and Cantonese opera are performed, and I was promised the former for the day of our visit.* Among the principal organisers are an old Hoklo fisherman of 75 who has lived at Ah Kung Ngam for nearly sixty years and two middle-aged Hakka men whose families have been settled there for 3-4 generations.\n\nAccording to the old Hoklo fisherman who first came to Ah Kung Ngam about 1911-1912, the Yuk Wong Temple was then 'a broken house with an incense burner'. He goes on to say that it was restored pre-war by a big subscriber.\n\nWalking back from Ah Kung Ngam (and later on, in passing by bus through Shau Kei Wan) the visitor will notice the abandoned quarry sites on the hillsides. The official yearly reports of the Hong Kong Government in the later 19th century (styled Blue Books) show that the Shau Kei Wan quarries were then much more important than any elsewhere on the Island and rivalled those in Old British Kowloon. We note, for instance, that there were 72 quarries operating there in 1872, 49 in 1881, and 51 in 1891.\n\n*The subject of the Wai Chau opera was taken from the San Kuo or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the most famous novels in Chinese literary history. The episode which was the subject for this particular play, entitled \"An Expedition for Revenge\", can be read in English between pages 597-607 of volume 1 of C. H. Brewitt-Taylor's translation of the novel in two volumes published by Kelly & Walsh, Limited, Shanghai: Hong Kong: Singapore, 1925.\n\n†The old man is right in thinking it was before his time. A list of temples in CSO No. 296/95, an old Secretariat file now kept in the Registrar General's Department, lists three trustees, all named Cheung, for the Yuk Wong temple at \"A Kung Ngam\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206232, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE DEBATE ON NATIONAL SALVATION \n\n43 \n\nway. Money played an important part and so did favouritism. Ho Kai pointed out that some candidates even provided themselves with substitutes who wrote the examination papers for them for a substantial consideration; others took large collections of old essays into the examination hall to copy; while others again ensured their success by valuable presents. Ho Kai strongly believed that officials selected in this way were bound to jeopardize the governmental administration. \n\nHo Kai challenged Tseng on this point by referring to the Foochow fleet.13 He asked: \n\nHas not the Foochow naval engagement which the Marquis alludes to distinctly proved that it is not? Was not the commander-in-chief of the Foochow fleet a literate of the first water, and was not his knowledge of the Chinese classics intimate, and was he not a scholar who had passed his third literary examination with flying colours and finally been admitted a member of the Imperial College? But the defeat was not his fault. He could no more help it than, to use a common phrase, could the man in the moon. Where had he been trained in naval warfare, and where had he got his knowledge of naval engagements? \n\nHo Kai lamented that no one could tell what would be the consequence of this illiberal policy, but he was certain that China had deprived herself in this way of many good and faithful servants who otherwise would have served her with loyalty and distinction. \n\nTseng had expressed his confidence that under the leadership and guidance of (Sir) Sherrard Osborn, the British officer who had been seconded to China, a strong and really efficient Navy could be created. Ho Kai, however, strongly criticised Tseng's lack of insight. He wrote: \n\nThere is scarcely a civilized country in the world which needs a really efficient and strong fortification along her coast more than China. But there is something which she is in greater need of, that is, competent hands to man her forts and attend to and fight her ships. Big guns and forts are all very well in their way, but they are utterly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206243, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "HON EDITOR \n\nof the period in later life in two well-known books entitled The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton before Treaty Days 1825-1844 (Kelly & Walsh, 1882 and 2nd edition 1911) and Bits of Old China, also published by Messrs. Kelly & Walsh at the same dates. C. Toogood Downing's The Fan-Qui in China (three volumes, London, Henry Colburn, 1838) is another well-known contemporary account.\n\nExtracts from the Letters * \n\nTO HIS SISTER, DATED CANTON, 12TH DECEMBER, 1835 \n\nMy time here is fully occupied, I am glad to say. If sometimes rather too much so there's no great harm done; I assure you I have supped too full of the horrors of idleness in time gone by, to fret at hard work now. There are several circumstances in Canton life which agree with me very well—and these are just enhanced by contrast with its disadvantages. There is some interest too in the strange faces, browned and weather-beaten, of the ship-captains from Liverpool and London etc. who are lodged and boarded of necessity in our Hong here all the time their Ships are in the Port, so that Covers are laid every day for an indefinite number, and the whole Domestic Establishment in short is a Boarding-House with a Table d'hôte at 7 p.m. The comfort of this evil, is the sanctity with which folks' private-rooms are regarded—seeing that there is no privacy whatever elsewhere; and in my bedroom accordingly, I enjoy greater security and deeper seclusion than if I were a stranger in an Inn with boots and chambermaids and postboys to interrupt me whether I have business with them or no. Sundry persons who dislike the strict imprisonment of a Canton-life, venture out, of evenings, on the river, in wherries. As there is a barrier, a break-water, of some thousands of boats and river-crafts of the most unutterable forms and still more unmentionable characters, to break, bruise and burst through, before ten square feet of dirty water can be won free, this is not an amusement I have taken to; and fond as I used to be of it, I think I shall become more and more averse to experiments on the Canton River the longer I remain in China. Three Europeans have been drowned by accident since my arrival here, which is just an \n\n* \n\n* The text has been left in the writer's style. Additions and queries in square brackets are the Editor's.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206275, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "86\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nof substantial Chinese merchants was not realized.\n\nThe Blue Book reports for both 1845 and 1846 noted some signs of a growing stability in the Chinese population. In 1845 it was stated that \"both in numbers and respectability the Chinese are improving, being accompanied in a greater number of instances by their families\", and in 1846, \"the proportion of females increases as a feeling of security induced Chinese settlers to bring over their families\". The settling of families was welcomed because it indicated that the Chinese who did so were willing to consider Hong Kong as a place of permanent residence. Although there had been noted some progress in this area, the report for 1848 indicated that it was not sustained. \"There exists no local attachment, which may be ascribed to the absence of respectable families born on the island, with which the adventurers could contract marriages. The rent of houses and shops is at present low enough to enable any man who has a middling trade to lodge his family, yet very few decent married females reside here. In this respect there has been very little improvement during the past year\". The paucity of Chinese families in Hong Kong is reflected in the annual census of shops and buildings. In 1845 there were as many brothels as families, twenty-five families and twenty-six brothels. Within five years the families had increased to 141, but there were only six more brothels than in 1845. The 1850s saw a substantial influx of Chinese families escaping from the turbulent conditions in Kwang Tung Province created by the Taiping Rebellion.\n\nThis influx changed somewhat the characteristics of Hong Kong's Chinese population. It acquired more stability, responsibility and economic strength. Examination of an emerging élite in this period shows that its members can be divided into five occupational groups: contractors, merchants, compradores, government servants and Christian employees of missionary groups. The biographies of the individuals in each of these groups found on our lists for determining élite status provide the background for élite emergence in the 1850s and 1860s.\n\nTHE CONTRACTORS GROUP\n\nWhen Hong Kong was settled the immediate need of buildings brought many connected with the building trade to Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206326, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "The District Watch Committee\n\n137\n\nto be the richest man in Hong Kong. When Ho Tung retired as chief compradore to Jardine, Matheson's in 1900, Ho Fook succeeded him. Ho Fook's assistant was Ho Kom Tong, another of Ho Tung's brothers. The members of the District Watch Committee were members of a small circle of businessmen, often related through ties of blood or marriage. When the Tai Yau Bank was established in 1914 with a paid-up capital of $6,000,000, the proprietors were named as Lau Chu Pak, Ho Fook, Ho Kom Tong, Lo Chung Shiu and Chan Kai Ming. Lau Chu Pak was compradore to A. S. Watson and Co., chairman of the Po On Commercial Association and chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce; Chan Kai Ming was manager of the Opium Farm; and Lo Chung Shiu, assistant compradore to Jardine, Matheson and Co., was Ho Fook's brother-in-law. All were or became members of the District Watch Committee.\n\n22 T. C. Cheng writes that Wei Yuk 'was very much concerned about law and order among the Chinese masses because in those early days riff-raff and political refugees from South China continued to come into Hong Kong. Thus it was at his suggestion that the District Watch Force was founded in 1888. Mr. Cheng appears to be mistaken about the date and is no doubt referring to the ordinance of that year, no. 13 of 1888 rather than to its proper date of origin. Wright and Cartright, Feldwick, and Professor Woo all state that the Committee was formed on Wei Yuk's suggestion. See: T. C. Cheng, 'Chinese Unofficial Members of the Legislative and Executive Councils of Hong Kong up to 1941', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 9, 1969, pp. 17-18; Arnold Wright and H. A. Cartright, Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai and other Treaty Ports, London, Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Co., 1908, p. 109; W. Feldwick, ed., Present Day Impressions of the Far East and Prominent Chinese at Home and Abroad, London Globe Encyclopedia Co., 1917, p. 576; Professor Woo Sing Lim, The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Five Continents Book Company, 1939, p. 4.\n\n23 Unfortunately all the records in the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs were destroyed or lost during the Japanese occupation and hence anyone trying to reconstruct the history of the District Watch must work mostly from scraps of information found in government publications, newspapers, books.\n\n24 My guess is that a large number were traditional Chinese merchants from the Five Districts operating on a relatively small scale. The Committee after 1891 represented the views of a more westernised and modernised elite with a knowledge of modern business techniques and modern financial manipulations. Dr. Ho Kai, for example, played the stock exchange with great success and speculated in many fields, particularly land development. He was, properly speaking, a financier although his occupation is often given tout court as lawyer. He had also qualified in medicine at Edinburgh but gave up the practice of medicine soon after his return to Hong Kong in 1882 because of Chinese resistance to western medicine.\n\n25 In 1903, for example, the Committee opposed the re-introduction of the night-pass system but suggested other remedial measures (see Index to Correspondence (General Register) 1894-1904, Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., 1909, p. 100). In 1909 'at the request of the District Watchmen Committee, children who are hawking without a licence are on their first offence sent to the Registrar General who cautions their guardians. This procedure seems to have proved effective in each case' wrote the Registrar General in 1909. It is worth noting that both Registrar General and Committee wanted to end the night-pass system and were opposed by the Captain Superintendent of Police, who was unsuccessful. As for hawkers, very few Chinese regarded them as a serious menace although colonial administrators", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206332, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "SUNG-TYPE POTTERY FINDS IN HONG KONG\n\n143\n\nwares in the shape of Chekiang celadons but with a soft red body, black glazed stonewares and white soft wares (probably from Fukien) and various ying-ching and greenish glazed porcellaneous wares. A large number of Southern Han (905-971 A.D.) and Sung coins were found with the pottery.\n\nThe Nim Shu Wan site extends over a beach and the slopes of the low hills behind the beach rising to a height of 60 metres. The site was considered by geomancers to be extremely lucky, being flanked at both ends by promontories; the one at the south end, being long and narrow, representing the \"green dragon\", and that at the north-east end, being wider and broader representing the \"white tiger\". A more basic factor favouring settlement was that both the beach and bay were well sheltered from the prevailing easterly winds. However, the long southern promontory which used to extend to a distance of about 200 metres into the sea has over the years been partially washed away by wave action leaving a few stacks to mark its former extent. By local tradition, this was one of the market places, hsü, for the villages along the coast of the mainland extending from Castle Peak to Tsuen Wan as well as for those on the islands of Peng Chau, Hong Kong, Cheung Chau and Lantau itself. Its location and geographical features made it an ideal market place for people who relied mainly on boats for transport. However, as the southern promontory began to disappear leaving the bay more exposed to the winds, the \"luck\" also left the place and by the beginning of this century only a few families lived there. In the last twenty years, as a result of population pressure, people from Peng Chau have begun to move into this area again, using the stones and bricks of the many ruins of old houses for building new ones and for retaining the terraced fields for cultivation.\n\nThe finds on this site include glazed earthenware funerary urns of a type that was prevalent in the Pearl delta during late T'ang and early Sung times (Plate 1). Apart from these, a large number of stoneware and porcelain sherds have been picked up on the beach from time to time. The fact that the quantity of sherds to be found on the beach remains fairly constant and that the breaks of the fragments are usually fresh and clean would indicate that the pottery has been washed down from higher ground and the pieces were broken on their way down the slope. There seems to be much greater variation in the colour and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206382, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE COLONY OF HONG KONG\n\n173\n\na Convention between Captain Elliott, who was then our plenipotentiary, and the Chinese commissioner Ke-shen; and some adventurous spirits had soon after located themselves on it. Ke-shen got into disgrace with his government for the cession; but it was fully confirmed by the subsequent treaty, and the island received the status of a Colony from an order in Council dated the 5th April, 1843, its principal town to be dignified with the name of our Queen. When I arrived, it was under the government of Sir Henry Pottinger, who had brought the war to a successful close.\n\nTo give you an idea of the place as I first saw it, I had proposed to take a walk with you along the Queen's Road from the west to the east, but I found that that would take too much time. That road was marked out, in many places imperfectly, from Sae-wan on towards Aberdeen, the waters of the bay, from which so much land has since been taken, coming, in the greater part of its course between East and West points, up to it on the north, Hollywood Road, and the streets running down from it to the Queen's Road, were also indicated in a rudimentary fashion. A little beyond the present Sailors' Home, were the Naval Stores, and, south of them, all the indentation of the hill where the Reformatory now stands was occupied with tents and huts peopled by the 55th Regiment. From that eastwards all was blank to the bluff where the Civil Hospital rises, and on which was a bungalow built by Jamieson, How & Co., and occupied by Mr. Edger, belonging to that firm, and in later years a member of the Legislative Council. On the other side of the road were some godowns of the same firm, washed by the sea. The next European buildings were Gibb, Livingston & Co.'s premises, enclosed within a ring fence, and where partners and employés all managed to reside, with none of the massive godowns which now seem to serve as buttresses to the offices. Up and down, and athwart, T'ae-p'ing-shan, were thread-like paths, with a Chinese house here and there, but the ground was mainly boulder and sandy gravel. Turning to the west, where Wellington Street runs into Queen's Road, you could see a few Chinese houses on either side of the latter, and Jervois Street was in course of formation, the houses on the north side of it having the waters of the bay washing about among them. Eastwards from the same point on to Pottinger Street, Queen's Road was pretty well lined with Chinese houses;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206389, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "180 \n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nChinese Customs' service, and a greater energy which has of late years been manifested by the Chinese Government itself. I have been told that the Customs' cruisers confine themselves to the inner waters, and act against smuggling and not piracy. It may be so; but smuggling and piracy may be considered as frequently only different branches of the same profession, the members of which will take to either as they think it safer, and likely to be more profitable for the occasion. That law and order are the rule increasingly in Hongkong and along the coast is a growing impression, and that impression is a surer preserver of the peace than the gallows, the axe, and the sword. Bad men are kept habitually obedient to the law by the form of justice armed with power in their mind's eye more than by outbursts of indignation occasionally aroused against them, and from which they always hope to escape.\n\nEre I leave the subject of crime, I may be permitted to say a few words on the police force of the colony. All along its history, the good organization of this has been perhaps the most difficult part of the duties of the Government. Experiment after experiment has been tried as to the constituents of the force; and as long as I can remember, that is, since the very first attempts at its formation, charges have been advanced against it of inefficiency, drunkenness, and openness to bribery. My own conviction has been for many years that the strength of the police force ought to consist of Chinese. I pressed my views on this point on Sir Richard MacDonnell soon after he arrived in the Colony, and he put them on one side. I stated them to the Commission which held its sittings on the subject during the present year, and I was glad to find that about one half of its members were disposed to coincide with me. I believe that the Chinese people are in the mass law-abiding and fond of order. I believe that there is a large body of Chinese merchants who have as great a stake in the Colony as the British and merchants of other nationalities have. I believe that by a cordial communication with them a body of native policemen might be obtained who would be sufficiently reliable, and who, with a smaller number obtained from home as the Government has lately done, a considerable proportion of its present force would keep the Colony almost free from crime. Give me a superintendent well skilled in the business of his department, and able to communicate", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206391, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 208, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "182\n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nI have drawn, you probably think, sufficiently long on your attention and patience already, and yet, that we may get a sufficient view of the growth of the Colony, I must ask you to go back with me to the time at which I had arrived when the unhealthiness of 1843 led me away into all these digressions. I will try, however, to be brief in what I have further to say.\n\nSir Henry Pottinger, I observed, was governor of the Colony when I came to it, and I was surprised to find that he was not by any means popular. He was a good man, people said, to conquer China, and a bad man to rule Hong Kong. The impression which I received from my intercourse with him was of a man condensed, reticent, powerful, who would have his own way, and was able to force it. Mr. Davis, afterwards Sir John Davis, arrived and relieved him in May, 1844; and his coming was hailed with eager expectation. He had been in China before in the East India Company's time, was a Chinese scholar, and had written a book on China, which is still the most readable and entertaining work on the country up to the time to which he was able to bring it down. He, it was thought, was just the man for the place. How it came about, I hardly know; but of all our governors he left his office under the greatest cloud of popular dissatisfaction. In his time, however, the Colony made very considerable advances. The arrival of Judge Hulme was almost contemporaneous with that of Sir John Davis, and a Court of Supreme judicature was constituted. Mr. May, whom we all know, arrived in March, 1843, and the police force began to take shape. Not long after, the tax on house property was proposed, and never was there a greater clamour in the place. It was argued that it was unconstitutional, an imperilling of that palladium of English liberty that taxation must go hand in hand with representation; and the revolt of the American Colonies in the last century was alluded to. It was not my lot, however, to be in Hong Kong during the greater part of Sir John Davis's administration. I was laid down with Hong Kong fever in the autumn of 1844, which returned with other complications in the following year, till I was carried on board ship on the 18th November, to make the passage round the Cape, my friends all supposing that Hong Kong had seen the last of me.\n\nTwo days after I had left, Ke-ying, the Chinese statesman, paid a visit to the Colony, and gave a grand entertainment to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206399, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 216, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "190 \n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nthe excitement and activity. Then came the close of the war in America, which had produced a feverish activity in the cotton market, ultimately disastrous to many. There followed, in 1866, the commercial disasters consequent on the fall of Overend and Gurney, and the panic at home, with the crashing of banks and the downfall of Houses which had been supposed to be firm as the foundations of the mountain behind us. It was a time of trouble and darkness. Sir Hercules came to the Colony when the tide was rising, and he had it at the flood for the greater part of his time. There remains the Robinson Road to perpetuate his name. When he went away, Mr. Mercer took his place as acting governor, an able man and accomplished, who would have done better for himself had he ventured to assume more responsibility. Then came Sir Richard MacDonnell to the helm at a time of great difficulty; but here I must bring my reminiscences of Hongkong to a close. The events of Sir Richard's incumbency are fresh in the memory of most of you, fresher, indeed, than in my own, for I was absent from the Colony during his administration for three whole years. There are none of us but would rejoice to hear of the reinvigoration of his health. In these recent years the capabilities of the telegraph wire and of the Suez Canal have come fully into play. Their effects on the Colony have already been great, and they will yet be greater.\n\nAnd now, as I draw to a conclusion, permit me to observe that the more than thirty years of my residence in the East have witnessed events of almost unparalleled magnitude and change all over the world. What wars and revolutions have taken place in Europe! in America! in India! in Africa! But great as they have been, they have not been greater than those which have taken place, here in the Far East. When I think of China opened as it has been, and of Japan pursuing with much more willing and rapid steps the career of progress, I can scarcely realize the contrast between the state of things in 1839 and 1872. We sometimes doubt if China be really moving, but moving it is; and if I sometimes fret at the slowness of its advance, and wish that there were more in it of the mobility of its neighbour, yet in the end that slowness tends to increase my respect for the country and its people. There must be a great future yet for the country. In Great Britain there is an area of 12,000 miles of coal fields,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206425, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "216\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\ncusp of the crescent\" (of the Praya Grande), deserves the derision of every collector.\n\nTheir description of \"the ambroidered (sic) phoenix plastron” conclusively proves the authors know nothing of the eight privileged classes in China. With this lack of knowledge they are in no position to comment on any portrait of a mandarin or hong merchant. To suggest that Gou Qua, a hong merchant, would take to the street as a fortune teller is quite impossible as he would lose face by such an act and never would paint himself in this situation.\n\nThe authors really know very little about Chinnery. They state \"Chinnery's forte was for portraits and these comprise the greater part of his oeuvre\". Pages later they quote him \"I have about 6,000 sketches of Eastern Scenery already - an invaluable collection, I assure you; but you see I am constantly accumulating”. They produce the completely unproven slur that one of the portraits he painted was of “a man of great wealth, an important qualification in the artist's philosophy as he was at his best when a generous fee had been agreed\". They also attempt, again with no proof, to attribute to him “occasional bouts of opium smoking”.\n\nIt is an error to say \"Russell & Co..... in turn came under control of Low Brothers of Salem\". W. H. Low, Senior was a partner 1830-1833. His nephew, A. A. Low, was a clerk 1833-1837, partner 1837-1840. W. H. Low 2nd worked as a clerk but never was a partner. The famous firm of A. A. Low and Bros. of New York, please, not Salem - was founded in 1841 by A. A. Low after he had retired from Russell & Co. It is a solecism to call the firm \"Russells\". It makes a good story only to the authors that \"W. C. Hunter\", later a partner in Russell & Co., “grasped sufficient of the local dialect to act as interpreter\". It is common knowledge that he specifically was sent to Singapore and Malacca to study Chinese.\n\nIt is inaccurate to state that Harriet Low, in her Diary, mentions seeing the double portrait of Dr. & Mrs. Colledge, plate 79, in London at Daniells' on 19 July 1834. She \"saw pictures of Mr. & Mrs. Colledge, not a single picture. Let us read further in the Diary: \"Ayok\" (the Low Chinese servant) \"burst into quite an hysterical laugh when he saw his father's face in Mr. Colledge's picture\". This is an obvious reference to the Chinnery portrait", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206572, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "E. G. PRYOR\n\nfor households with monthly incomes of less than HK$300 per month. In 1970, the monthly family income limit was increased to HK$600. Over the period 1965-1971 some 187,000 persons benefited from government low-cost housing schemes.\n\nFrom the above, it will be seen that government and government-aided housing provided accommodation for 1.5 million persons in 1971 (Figure 7). It is thus evident that the administration is taking seriously its responsibilities towards providing homes for lower-income families. Indeed, Table 1 shows that between 1965 and 1970 government and the other two main housing agencies built more domestic units than private developers, so that by the end of that period the total amount of subsidised accommodation was greater than the total in the private sector (Table 2). The significance of this achievement is brought into sharper perspective when it is considered that the provision of housing by government, the Housing Authority, and the Housing Society on such a vast scale has been accomplished only since 1951.\n\nHowever, whilst in quantitative terms these efforts have been impressive by any measure, there is scope for qualitative improvements. In this context, many of the older resettlement estates are now in need of modernisation, and this is a future task which the government has plans to undertake. There is also an increasing awareness of the need to ensure that large housing estates, especially in the new towns of Tsuen Wan, Castle Peak, and Shatin, need to be designed and built on a comprehensive basis with a view to the creation of a wholesome environment that provides for the many diverse forms of human activity. Unfortunately, this approach could not be followed in the development of many of the earlier estates, which had to be built on an emergency basis. The needs of the rural population for decent housing have also had to be held in abeyance, but this matter is now receiving closer attention.\n\nWhilst the government can be expected to continue to play a significant role in the provision of housing, the achievement of private developers over the immediate past years indicates that a substantial contribution from this sector can be expected in future, given stable economic and political conditions (Table 1). However, some concern must be expressed over the distribution of government and private housing, for whereas the bulk of private residential accommodation is located in the old congested districts of Hong Kong Island North\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206679, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS \n\nJ \n\n221 \n\nfor prediction purposes without regard to the average age of the average mouth that is to eat all these foodstuffs, but the basic reason, I believe, lies in the methodology adopted in this study. Economists' faith in sophisticated forecasting methods such as those employed here which seek out underlying relationships with the guidance of economic theory and the use of econometric techniques - rests on the ability to determine what these relationships are on the basis of past data and on the belief that the explanatory variables (income, population and price in this study) can be forecast with greater accuracy than the variable one is primarily concerned with, in this case the demand for commodities. If either or both of these twin pillars are suspect it may well be that a naive method, such as extrapolation of past trends, is both cheaper in terms of research resources and more accurate. In the present case there would seem to be strong reasons for suspecting the basis of the study. Regarding the econometrics one can fault the specification of demand relationships which yield improbable price elasticities already discussed; the absence of any tests of and methods of dealing with the serial correlation likely to occur in time series analysis; the absence of coefficients of determination which would indicate the explanatory power of the demand equations; and the use of an explanatory variable which is itself a speculative 'guesstimate' of per capita income and certain to give rise to biased estimates of per capita income coefficients of the errors-in-the-variables type.\n\nAs for the assumption that the explanatory variables per capita income and population — can be predicted with greater accuracy than the demand for commodities, one must admire the authors' optimism. Hong Kong's demographers greatly overestimated the 1966 population through a failure to take into account age-specific birth rates. Even granted the improved professionalism in this area over the last five years it remains true that changes in age of marriage and recourse to birth control can throw out demographic projections. Per capita income projections are far shakier since we do not even know what the trend to date has been with much certainty. Faced with these data problems the authors might well have opted for a naive forecast on the basis that things will stay as they are, only becoming more so! Future requirements of the various commodities could have been predicted on the basis of past values alone, using some function which is found to fit past data best. Such a method would not tell us anything about the underlying forces working", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206746, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "CHINA MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY\n\n17\n\nabout 96°, and likened by Alcock to the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle, or Barège in the Pyrenees. An analysis of three samples was carried out, and is recorded on p. 72-5 of the Transactions. As far as can be ascertained, there has been no later publication in western scientific literature on the mineral springs of Foochow, and very little on other Chinese spa waters, so this remains an important record.\n\nIt is interesting to speculate how Alcock came to be involved in this matter. His personal concern with health and sanitation derived from his training under the distinguished surgeon G. J. Guthrie at the Westminster Hospital, and later service as an army surgeon during the Peninsular campaigns of 1832-37. He was thus by training a medical man, though it is as a diplomat that Sir Rutherford Alcock is remembered today, finishing his consular career by appointment as British Minister to Japan, 1859-65. Alcock passed through Hong Kong in October 1844, and no doubt met some of the medical men during his brief stay in the Colony. Probably he remained in correspondence with some of them, for when writing in September 1845 he refers to previous letters of May and June between Dr. Hobson and himself. In appreciation of Alcock's contribution, the Society elected him to honorary membership (Transactions, p. 58).\n\nPerhaps of greater interest in the history of western medicine and medical education in China are the activities of the Society towards the promotion of a medical school for Chinese in Hong Kong. Foremost amongst the proponents of this scheme was Dr. Benjamin Hobson, whose letter on the subject dated June 15, 1845 appears on p. 16-18 of the Transactions. “If we are to effect any change in the low empirical state of Medical science in China,” wrote Hobson, \"it must be in my opinion by educating the Chinese in the principles and theory of the Medical Art, according to the more modern practice of the West. And in Victoria there are facilities and advantages to secure this interesting object of our hopes, which no other place possesses.\" Dr. Hobson pointed out that there were several hospitals, military, naval and other, where \"I am authorized to say, the Chinese Medical Student will be welcome to study not only forms of disease as they affect European constitutions, but their treatment and pathology.\"\n\nHobson went on to propose \"That the premises of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and the Medical School be (at least till farther", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206760, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG\n\n31\n\nOn 13th September, 1906 it again became time for His Excellency to speak on the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the coming year. In the course of that speech he said—\n\nOne of the items which I wished to appear on the Estimates for this year but which does not appear is the typhoon shelter. So long as we have those waterworks on hand to which I have referred there is very little chance of doing anything in connection with the shelter; unless the Chamber of Commerce would suggest raising the light dues to provide funds for its construction, in which case such a reasonable suggestion might be adopted.\n\nEvents were then to take a tragic turn. A week later on 20th September, 1906, His Excellency returned to the Legislative Council and informed the members that (as they well knew)—\n\nHong Kong had just suffered from catastrophe as calamitous, if not more so, than any which had previously befallen the Colony, the loss of life and property between the hours at 9 and 11 on Tuesday morning were as far as can at present be judged greater than those incurred in the great typhoon of 1874.\n\nHe went on to say--\n\nNone of us are likely to forget the scenes of that morning, first of all we saw when the typhoon gun was fired about 9 o'clock crowds of helpless shipping drifting to the east before the wind, then the whole scene was wiped out by the blowing sheets of rain, and an hour later the atmosphere being again clear, we saw that the junks and small craft had disappeared and that many of the larger ships were aground or in distress. What had happened to the Chinese boats was evidenced by the appalling scenes of desolation along the prayas or the Kowloon shore. I need not, however, dwell on those scenes nor account the losses which were witnessed and known to all of you.\n\nHe went on to detail and pay tribute to various acts of heroism which had occurred during the course of the storm.\n\nThis typhoon had occurred just after the budget for 1907 had been presented and before the Council had had an opportunity to comment on the proposed expenditure at its next sitting. Now the Governor had suggested the construction of a typhoon shelter could not be started unless perhaps it were financed out of increased light dues. Despite the typhoon in which an estimated 10,000 people", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206872, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n143\n\nwith bamboo strips round the ankles, above the knees and round the belly. Their arms were then lashed out to the cross pieces, and lastly their heads were firmly secured to it by two or three turns of the bamboo strip across the eyes and in the mouth, this last acting as a very efficient \"gag\". The executioners who superintended the securing each of his own man and who seemed to have several assistants, apparently volunteers who enjoyed the job, now got their knives---broad-bladed about 10 inches long-and bared their arms to the elbow; their trousers were already confined by leggings and they had taken off their shoes. Each one, when all was ready, stepped back and took a critical look at his man; one of them gave an enquiring shout to the Mandarin at the gate, probably asking for orders to go on. The Mandarin gave an answering wave of the hand, and the most sickening brutal performance I can imagine commenced.\n\nI cannot give correctly in detail how it was all done; after the first few seconds I could only take occasional looks at what was going on. Even now, writing an account of it—24 hours after—gives me \"the shakes\". I don't think any of our party looked at it through—but between us all we saw it all and we compared notes afterwards.\n\nThe first executioner at work was the one who was \"doing\" the culprit furthest off from us—about 50 yards. The first two cuts were over each eye and temple—gashes which turned a great piece of flesh down—then one down each cheek, then one over each shoulder and upwards under each arm-pit, one in each upper arm and one in each fore-arm, and then he hacked off the right hand with one blow; then a great piece was cut out of each thigh and over each knee, and I think the privates were cut clean off; then the furthest off had his stomach slashed open and the executioner got hold of his entrails—this man had to receive a greater number of cuts than the other. So the other executioner, when he had finished his slashing and was waiting, drove his knife up to the hilt under the right breast bone of his victim, and in one of my looks I saw him holding the knife there, working it about, while an assistant held an ordinary palm leaf fan in front of the poor wretch's face, in order, I suppose, to hide his contortions, for he was not yet dead, as I could see by the working of his hands. Both victims were by this time smothered in blood and hanging to the crosses, only kept up by the lashings. The next and last thing I saw was the first man cut down from the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206951, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "16\n\nA. I. DIAMOND\n\nThe charge cannot be denied. To destroy any of the papers which form part of the body of archives, unless destruction is limited to word-for-word duplicates, is to place the peculiar integrity they had, as such, at risk, and the greater the destruction the greater the violence done to the principles on which their value for research is claimed to rest.\n\nArchivists have no defence in terms of theory for the destruction of archives, and it is only when the practicalities are considered that justification can be found for it. The volume of records generated by modern governments is enormous and growing greater year by year. It has been claimed that if all the records produced or received by the Federal and State governments of the United States in a single year were packed on shelving, that shelving would extend for more than fifty miles. Faced with archival accumulation on such a scale, what are administrators and archivists and scholars themselves, for that matter, to do, but to agree that a policy for the selective destruction of archives is unavoidable. The question, really, is not whether to destroy, but what.\n\nHaving said that, it might seem logical now to discuss criteria for the selection of documents for disposal. I have no intention of doing so. It is difficult to say anything in general terms on that subject which is not either spurious or self-evident. What should be preserved will always depend on the nature of the records being appraised and on their relationship, if any, to other records. And the answer may not be the same for similar records under varying sets of circumstances.\n\nIt would be more worthwhile, I think, to say a little about the mechanisms which are being developed in modern societies to conserve valuable archives and to channel them into the safe-keeping of archive institutions.\n\nThe archivist nowadays stands downstream of a veritable flood of papers, valuable and otherwise, and if he is not to be inundated, he must be granted some part in manipulating the sluicegates.\n\nIt is no longer enough for archivists to know how to manage records already in their own custody. They must be conversant also with the techniques and exigencies of records management in the agencies they serve. For it is only if archivists are knowledgeable in this field that they can anticipate problems arising for themselves and hope to enlist the aid of administrators in solving them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206985, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "H. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nEuropean expansion and domination that ended in 1914 provided a more richly fertile environment for this social type. Adventurers do not compose a social group held together by common beliefs or ideology like anarchists, bolsheviks or suffragettes; rather they are supreme individualists and their individualism and egomania asserts itself most brutally in periods of rapid social change, in periods of social dislocation, fluid social boundaries, disorder and political ambiguity. Adventurers surface in greater numbers, then, under particular social conditions; they can impose their will, in the short run at least, by force, bluff, imposture or sheer physical courage,56 either because their social audience is credulous or because their victims desire victimisation, as a martyr seeks martyrdom; for the need to be dominated is as strong sometimes as the urge to dominate. Domination means accepting constraints, and constraint may bring a measure of psychic security and peace.\n\nSouth-East Asia, Central and South America, the Wild West and the Pacific, all provided an ideal terrain for the adventurers' individual obsessions, whether it was the pursuit of power, wealth, status, excitement, luxury or sensuality. And these were areas, of course, where the white man increasingly exercised control, by means of his advanced technology and dominant culture. Mayréna in the land of the Moï and Morès in the Bad Lands of North Dakota, a frontier area only recently cleared of Sioux, lived outpost lives on the margin of civilisation—one became, briefly, the King of the Sedangs, the other, likewise, the Emperor of the Bad Lands. Conditions in these places were perfect for the seigneurial role they sought to play. Such conditions would not be found easily today.\n\nAt this time, two other factors favoured the adventurer class: respect for titles and poor communications. Mayréna succeeded in making dupes of several influential and wealthy persons because they were deeply impressed by his assumed rank—the 'King of the Sedangs' or 'le comte de Drey'. Morès was a nobleman and a grand seigneur by birth; the fact that his name and that of his noble house could be found enshrined in print in the Almanach de Gotha seduced people of lesser rank. The European bourgeoisie achieved economic and a larger degree of political power in the nineteenth century; this parvenu class, ostensibly resentful of social distinctions was, on the other hand, often mesmerised by titles of any kind. This was true even in democratic America: the shady thespians who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207164, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 235, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n229 \n\nthe building was blessed. There were then 540 pupils in fourteen classes. The first matriculation class was formed in 1933.\n\nWith the beginning of the European War in 1939, the Government interned enemy aliens on the College premises. The Japanese used it as a hospital. The Brothers re-occupied the buildings after the liberation of Hong Kong, but from 1949 the British Army took it over for use as a hospital. During these periods the College was housed in temporary quarters.\n\nToday the school is under the direction of Brother Raphael Egan. There is a student body of some 1,500, the greater majority being Chinese, though there is still in the student body a number of Portuguese boys. They continue the contribution this part of Hong Kong's population has made to the history of the school.\n\nOther Schools in the Area\n\nNorth of Boundary Street between Waterloo Road and La Salle Road is Oxford Road. In one block there are six Middle Schools: Pui Shing Middle School, Tung Wah Hospital No. 1 College, Ying Wa College, Moral Training English School, Jockey Club Government Technical School, and Bishop Hall Jubilee School. Maryknoll Convent School opened in 1936 is nearby at the corner of Boundary Street and Waterloo Road.\n\nOf these schools, three have roots in Hong Kong's early history. While the association of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club with education through financial support is of recent origin, the Race Meets were a prominent feature of Hong Kong life from early days.\n\nYing Wa College continues the tradition of the Anglo-Chinese College established by the missionaries Robert Morrison and William Milne at Malacca in 1819. In 1843 it was moved to Hong Kong by the Rev. James Legge. The school was closed in 1856. It had been organised and conducted by representatives of the London Missionary Society. In 1914 the Society opened a school in Kowloon bearing the Chinese version of the English name, of their former school: Ying Wah, that is 'Anglo-Chinese'.\n\nThe Tung Wah No. 1 College opened in 1962 is a part of Tung Wah Hospital efforts to provide education for under-privileged children. This programme began in 1880 when a Free Primary School was opened in the Chung Wah College premises adjoining the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road. A school under the direction of the Temple Committee had been operated on these premises for many years previous. A lot had been granted by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207256, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 24, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "A HONG KONG SPIRIT-MEDIUM TEMPLE\n\nJOHN T. MYERS*\n\nHong Kong possesses scores of temples where traditional deities of the Chinese pantheon are worshipped and petitioned by devotees from the local population. Although the temples differ in structural elaboration and popularity, the majority are host to a common set of individual and group rituals. It is in the very area of ritual, however, that the temple we will discuss in this paper differs from most others. This particular temple exists primarily to provide a setting where worshippers can communicate directly with selected deities through the services of religious practitioners who act as spirit mediums. Unlike their Western counterparts who specialize in contact with the spirits of deceased mortals, the Chinese mediums with whom we are concerned claim possession solely by immortals of the traditional Taoist and Buddhist pantheons.\n\nOur procedure shall be initially to discuss the meaning of spirit-mediumship in general and its more common manifestations within the Chinese cultural sphere. We shall then consider at greater length a particular spirit-medium temple in Hong Kong with special attention to its setting, history, personnel, and ritual. Even though this paper is by design a descriptive account of the temple and its cult, we shall in a final section discuss briefly the basis of the apparent success currently enjoyed by each. Does that success indicate a surge of interest in spirits and their mediums among the general population, or is the explanation to be found elsewhere?\n\nSpirit-mediumship\n\nOnce man posits the existence of a supernatural realm with precisely or vaguely defined inhabitants, he is seldom content with allowing that perception to rest on the cognitive level alone. Almost inevitably there is the further judgement that the supernaturals are\n\n*Mr. Myers was on the faculty of the Sociology Department, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, during the period of his field work. His research on Chinese spirit-mediumship was supported by a grant from the Harvard-Yenching Institute and administered through the Social Research Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is currently with the department of Anthropology, Indiana University.\n\nPlates 1-4 at rear of the Journal illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207275, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "MERCHANT ORGANISATIONS IN IMPERIAL CHINA\n\n35\n\nbuildings and roads destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion. Collaboration of this sort gave these merchant leaders a greater voice over taxation and other local public affairs.23 The same guild leaders joined charitable organisations because their larger numbers offered them a wider base of support.\n\nAs the merchants assumed a leadership role in providing social services and welfare, they gradually took over responsibilities and privileges which went along with their work. Because permanent charitable organisations could cut across guilds and sometimes Landsmannschaften, they claimed that their leadership was based on community-wide support. And since they were merchants, they should be identified as merchant leaders to whom matters affecting the merchants would be referred. Moreover, these merchants were elites in their own communities, and were regularly referred to as \"titled merchants” (shen-shang). Even as individuals, they had some political influence with the local officials. But unless they had begun as gentry or officials, such influence rested on no legitimate basis. When they organised themselves in institutions which had a communal purpose, they quickly used them to claim legitimate leadership.\n\nThis was what happened by the late nineteenth century. In Hong Kong, the board of directors of the Tung Wah Hospital quickly gained the right to present petitions to the Hong Kong government on all matters related to the Chinese community. Institutionally, the hospital was put under the jurisdiction of the Registrar General, after 1913 styled the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, who also served as its patron. By the early 1880's, the board opened up another channel when the Governor-general's Office in Canton began to correspond with it. There is some indication that the directors acted as a kind of information centre and advisory board for the Governor-general on matters involving the overseas Chinese.24 To this day, a seat on the board of directors of either the Tung Wah Hospital or the Po Leung Kuk still represents the government's recognition of each occupier's leadership status.\n\nIn Canton, charitable organisations, too, quickly became a regular channel of communication between the government and the merchants. In early 1886, when news of the San Francisco race riots against Chinese workers reached Canton and Hong Kong, the Chinese government wrote to the directors of the Ai-yü shan-t’ang", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207278, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "38 \n\nWELLINGTON K. K. CHAN \n\nCharitable halls in Shanghai did not display the same amount of community leadership even though they should have had a greater community base than the guilds. The reason seems obvious. Charitable halls dominated in communities where the merchants had no problem of collaboration because of differences in dialects or in regional customs. Hence their pre-eminence in places like Canton and Hong Kong. In Shanghai, the cultural gaps between, say, a Cantonese and a Ningpo merchant were often insurmountable. In the final analysis, charitable halls, like the formalised committees of guilds and Landsmannschaften, failed to grow into truly community-wide institutions. \n\nAchievements \n\nMerchant leaders in nineteenth century China were adept at adjusting their organisations to the changing needs of the day. By building up different types of organisations, they hoped to acquire first, broader economic and social interests; second, a large community base; and third, greater political leadership responsibility. As a result, these leaders were singularly successful in the first, especially in providing social welfare and municipal services, but were only partially successful in the second. Thus, in the more homogenous commercial centres such as Canton and Swatow, the charitable halls and the assembly commanded a community base far larger than the traditional guilds, but could not win the allegiance of the entire community. In other places like Shanghai, where the merchant leaders came from several provinces, it was more difficult to set up community-wide organisations. Even the chamber of commerce which followed these organisations and which had explicit aim of involving each entire community was unable to do without sectional interests. \n\nThe Shanghai chamber was dominated by the Ningpo merchants from its inception in 1904 to at least the 1920's.35 The Canton chamber had seven vice-presidents (fu-pan) who were elected by the various guilds from among the chamber directors.36 The most extreme assertion of this form of group separatism was written into the bylaws of the overseas Chinese chamber of commerce in Singapore. There, two concurrent presidents were elected by the two most powerful Hokkien and Teochiu (i.e. Ch'ao-chou) merchant groups, while a specific number of vice-presidents and directors were assigned, in diminishing sizes, to these two and three", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207348, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "108\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nsituations. Thus attitudes toward the lower orders were often ambivalent.\n\nBut a further reason should be advanced: working class Europeans were seen as lowering the prestige of the white man in the East. They were, by definition, poor; they lacked ton and breeding; too often they hobnobbed with—even lived with—Asians; they did not cultivate the unruffled ease and dignity of the Taipan. A journalist asserted: 'there is always an expensive necessity for maintaining foreign prestige. It makes for greater contentment and a good type of resident, and it is good for the Chinese in that it elevates economic standards by example'.33 The key words here are 'foreign prestige'. The European lower orders, it was thought, undermined this sought-after prestige and, by their presence in the East, helped weaken respect for the European merchant in Hong Kong and the Treaty Ports.\n\nRELATIONSHIPS WITH THE CHINESE\n\nH.E. Maude argues that in the South Seas beachcombers and castaways were emissaries of western culture and that 'the European came to be regarded for more practical reasons—as an economic and political asset';34 for example, he brought with him certain skills, such as the maintenance of small-arms and cannon, valued by the South Sea islander. In Hong Kong the situation differed: the beachcomber (there were no castaways) and other low status Europeans had little expertise to offer the Chinese; for the Cantonese, in particular, were skilled craftsmen in wood, metal, stone, ivory, and other materials. Working class Europeans could neither compete nor enter into competition with Chinese workers, artisans, and craftsmen. Hence, for this and other reasons, no true European proletariat ever established itself, apart from a class of mechanics employed in European-owned enterprises.\n\nAn obvious factor that inhibited interchange between Chinese and working class Europeans was the problem of language. Very few Europeans could speak colloquial Cantonese in the nineteenth century. This was true of most police, turnkeys, inspectors, and supervisors. Such communication as took place was through the medium of pidgin English, 'an extraordinary jargon', according to Samuel Couling, 'in use between native servants, shopmen, etc., on the one side, and foreigners who do not speak Chinese on the other", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207381, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "PACIFIC OYSTER INDUSTRY IN HONG KONG\n\n141\n\ning the largest agricultural area of Hong Kong—the Yuen Long Plain (†). Deep Bay is sheltered and with the large amount of silt brought down partly from the rivers draining into the bay and partly from the Pearl River, the whole area is very shallow. The depth of water never exceeds 6 metres. Consequently, a large expanse of shore is exposed by the receding tide. The oysters are cultivated on this muddy intertidal flat (Plate 13).\n\nThe hydrology of Deep Bay has been studied by Bromhall (1958), and more recently and in greater detail by Mok (1973), Leung et al (1975) and Morton and Wu (1975). As elsewhere in Hong Kong, Deep Bay is influenced by the north-easterly monsoon in winter and the south-easterly monsoon in summer. In winter, from November to February, the cool, dry north-easterly monsoon lowers the water temperature to around 10–15°C and maintains the salinity at a high level of 26–32%. In summer, from June to August, the water temperature rapidly rises to approximately 28–32°C. The cooling and warming of Deep Bay is enhanced and hastened by the shallowness of the water. The warm, wet south-easterly monsoon in summer brings heavy rainfall to southern China, increasing the discharge of the Pearl River, the Shum Chun River, the Yuen Long Creek and other small streams entering the bay. An additional source of fresh water is the direct runoff from the land. The water in Deep Bay is therefore greatly diluted, with the salinity reduced to 5–10% in summer. Consequently, typically estuarine conditions prevail within the bay, and with the influx of freshwater, the water is highly productive (Watts, 1973; Leung et al, 1975). The cool saline water in winter and the warm, almost fresh water conditions in summer are particularly suitable for the cultivation of the Pacific oyster.\n\nThe area of Deep Bay, on the Hong Kong side, is divided into a number of T'ong or village family (#) plots—six being the most frequently quoted number. The oyster industry in Hong Kong is being run on a family basis, with neither a large capital investment nor special organised planning. Each oyster farmer may own or rent several acres of oyster beds. The essential equipment an oyster farmer must possess is a sampan (✯✯), a wooden sledge (AU), a pair of tongs (##) and a shucking hammer (1). A small sum of money may be needed to buy new cultch—the artificial substrate upon which the oyster spat settles. The most important factor regulating the organization of the industry is the availability of man-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207472, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 240, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "232\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nThe fact that I remarked upon this feature shows that it was unusual and this is true. Other doctors were not openly discourteous; their manner was uniformly aloof and when interest in the case of a patient was displayed there was little sign that one human being was dealing with another. This characteristic was shown by all inspecting officers and we came to regard it as normal, certainly with us and quite possibly with their own troops also. One eye specialist, a lieutenant, his name sounded like Igara, examined a number of these patients suffering from disturbed vision one day along with Major J.D. Fraser. We asked him for suggestions for treatment and he advised giving potassium iodide by mouth along with subconjunctival injections of saline. We showed no enthusiasm for these measures and he said he was prepared to give the injections himself. We diverted his attention and no such injections were ever given.\n\nIn January 1944 all in hospital were asked by the Japanese to provide 200 word essays on their experiences during hostilities. Essayists were asked to pay special attention to any psychological reactions to their experiences, the area in which they had fought and the names of comrades who had been killed. I imagined that criticisms of our own leaders, personal fears, war weariness, Japanese superiority in the field for example, might have proved useful propaganda in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Many of the stories which passed through me showed that bodily privation had not impaired mental inventiveness and I made sure that nothing of value got through in these essays.\n\nJapanese forms were also required to be completed for every man in the hospital showing his name, date of birth and age, height, weight, chest measurement, dates of inoculation against typhoid, dysentery and cholera and date of vaccination. I was required to record weights graphically each month, a record which I had been keeping up already for my own purpose ever since August 1942. In December separate forms giving information about themselves were required in addition from all non-British in the hospital.\n\nAnother report demanded by Saito was on the peace condition of our hospital in Bowen Road. He sought information on accommodation, diets, amenities, ward equipment, lighting and so on. I never discovered the reason for him collecting this information whose only value could have been to satisfy his personal curiosity.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207518, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 286, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "278\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nSaito. He acted without giving reasonable consideration to the cases of sick people put to him as needing hospital treatment, so that many for whom hospital treatment could have been life-saving were not sent in.\n\nWhen the hospital moved nearer to the camps in Kowloon in 1945 we began to see signs that it might be going to be used properly to receive the more serious cases in the camps as they occurred and so fulfil its proper function. If we had been moved near to our sources of patients at the beginning of our imprisonment we might have served our sick more extensively and would have been of greater value to the camp doctors. A move then, when we had a hospital full of seriously wounded, would have been dangerous for these men. By the time the move occurred the need was much less pressing though our availability did, I believe, do much to improve our service.\n\nI do not know what relations existed between Saito and his commander Colonel Tokunaga, but while I must, in justice, be careful in reaching judgments, I consider that as a medical man Saito failed to do much that lay within his power for our sick, particularly those in camps. In saying this I do not claim for our prisoners more than the standards of care allowed by international agreements. A coordinated plan to apply such resources as we commanded in camps and in hospital would have made a vast difference to the medical story of prisoners in Hong Kong.\n\nWhile therefore I can agree that we in the hospital fared better than many in Japanese hands I must also record my conviction that the possession and careful husbanding in the hospital of our own resources played a very large part in such successes as we achieved. Any success that attended the efforts of any of us would have been immensely diminished without the aid of Mr. Zindel and the Red Cross Society and our generous friends in Hong Kong.\n\nWithout the life-saving measures provided by the medical services in the P.O.W. camps, using makeshift resources, many patients would never have reached the hospital at all.\n\nTHE STAFF\n\nMy main purpose in writing this account is to record the history of the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong, from 1942 to 1945 and those who served on the staff or were patients there. The account fails to record some of the colourful personalities we had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207644, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 32, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "STUDY OF MODERNIZATION IN CHINA & JAPAN\n\n17\n\nhistory of nations is largely moulded by the forms and development of their armed forces.\"32 In so-called underdeveloped countries, especially those facing an immediate military challenge, armies can perform a crucial modernizing function. Ike Nobutaka indicates that during the Meiji era \"the armed forces were probably more modern than the rest of the nation in terms of technology and organization,\" but it was not only in these areas that the Japanese military made its modernizing influence felt.33\n\nIn the political sphere, it is clear that the new-style army of Meiji Japan contributed to the consolidation of the regime, and to the further development of a national political consciousness. Conscription at once solidified government authority and enhanced national security. Throughout the nineteenth century, moreover, the military provided a deep pool of bureaucratic talent. From 1885 to 1912, for example, over thirty-five percent of all Japan's civilian ministries were under military men (41 of 112). The balance of generals and admirals in the cabinet did not shift in favor of civilians until 1898.34 In the lower echelons of the bureaucracy, too, the military provided talented and disciplined personnel. At yet another level, the rank and file acquired at least a heightened sense of political participation, as well as a vibrant nationalistic spirit. Educational opportunities within the army only increased this tendency.35\n\nIn the social realm, the military also promoted modernizing change. Conscription, for example, helped level society, giving greater meaning to concepts such as social equality and the idea of mobility based on performance.36 The growth of the military, which continued throughout the nineteenth century, contributed to urbanization, with all its concomitant changes.37 Living standards and health care improved for large numbers of traditionally disadvantaged individuals who were now entering the army. Individual expectations were naturally raised. Recruits acquired new tastes and personal needs. It is said that the habit of cigarette smoking was spread in Japan by soldiers who had picked up the practice in the army. Many recruits also developed a taste for beef, a mark of cultural refinement in the Meiji period.38\n\nOther new influences in the army spread rapidly to Japanese society at large. Western-style uniforms, for example, became standard in the army; soon they were adopted for policemen, train conductors, and other civil functionaries. The shift to wearing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207662, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 50, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "# THE TEOCHIU: ETHNICITY IN URBAN HONG KONG\n\n35\n\na reflection of the general mutual animosity between Teochiu and other Chinese. Any further discussion of general patterns becomes less meaningful given the variation within the Teochiu population. The discussion in one of the following sections of the Teochiu population in one resettlement estate considers this variation and the processes discussed above in a particular social setting.\n\nThe geographical distribution of Teochiu in Hong Kong in 1971 is presented in Table 1. The only area of heavy Teochiu concentration in Hong Kong Island is the West census district, which of course includes Nam Pak Hong, the oldest area of Teochiu concentration. Hung Hom is the only area of substantial Teochiu settlement in the Kowloon census districts. More than one half of the Teochiu recorded in the census reside in the New Kowloon census districts, with one-fourth of all Teochiu in the Kai Tak district and almost one-fourth in Ngau Tau Kok and Lei Yue Mun districts. The Kai Tak census district includes Kowloon City, an area of heavy Teochiu residential concentration. The Ngau Tau Kok and Lei Yue Mun census districts roughly correspond to the industrial town of Kwun Tong. Thousands of Teochiu squatters were resettled into Kwun Tong's resettlement estates, particularly Ngau Tau Kok Resettlement Estate. Another census district in New Kowloon with significant Teochiu concentration is Shek Kip Mei; many Teochiu in this district reside in the Shek Kip Mei Resettlement Estate. The only areas of significant Teochiu concentration in the New Territories are Tsuen Wan and Yuen Long. Again, many Teochiu in Tsuen Wan reside in resettlement estates, mostly in Kwai Chung. Personal experiences in Tsuen Wan suggest that the actual number of Teochiu in Hong Kong is greater than the 1971 census figures.\n\nTable II indicates that more than 39% of Teochiu land domestic households are located in resettlement estates and almost one-half are located in one kind of housing estate or another. I would estimate that at least one half of Teochiu households at one time or another resided in squatter structures. In 1971 over 8,000 Teochiu households resided in \"temporary housing\" and another 4,700 households in \"stone structures\". These two categories refer primarily to illegal squatter structures, which suggests that a fairly large number of Teochiu are still squatters.\n\n1 The information in Table 1 and in the other tables was very kindly provided by Mr. M. C. Leong, Statistician, Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Government.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207668, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "The Teochiu; Ethnicity in Urban Hong Kong\n\nVariation and Solidarity within Teochiu Population1\n\n41\n\nAs noted above, there were sufficiently large numbers of Teochiu immigrants coming to Hong Kong after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to enable Teochiu to reside and work together in fairly large concentrations. The initial contact period between non-Teochiu and the new immigrants was generally marked by ethnic hostility, at times erupting into physical violence between individuals or groups at places of work. Interethnic rivalry and violence was particularly common among coolies. Recently arrived Teochiu could not, of course, speak or understand Cantonese and were often forced to work in the most physically demanding and lowest paid occupations. Informants have indicated that it required a period of up to one year in some cases for Teochiu to learn sufficient Cantonese to enable limited communication with non-Teochiu. Communication difficulties and concomitant mis-understandings were undoubtedly one cause of inter-ethnic hostility and have contributed to the widely held belief among non-Teochiu that Teochiu are loud spoken and quarrelsome. Teochiu who were born in China and learned Cantonese after immigrating to Hong Kong speak Cantonese with a distinct accent and can be easily identified as Teochiu by others. The fact that many Teochiu could initially find work only in low status occupations reinforced the opinions of others that Teochiu were rough and coarse menial laborers. Teochiu were widely discriminated against and treated with fear and disrespect in this early period. They found it difficult to obtain jobs from non-Teochiu and were considered by many to be too violent and aggressive to function well in some jobs. The belief that Teochiu are violent in nature is largely derived from the very real tendency for Teochiu to go to the aid of other Teochiu in a fight, even if they are complete strangers. This norm, involving mutual assistance on the street, was a reflection of the struggles involved in survival and adaptation. It is thus not surprising that most initially relied on Teochiu sources of assistance and that many remained heavily involved in primarily Teochiu networks and committed to a Teochiu identity as they grew older.\n\nThe greater part of my research was concerned with an intensive analysis of Teochiu social networks and several formal and informal religious organizations in one resettlement estate. The Teochiu\n\n1 The discussion that follows, unless stated otherwise, refers to Teochiu living in urban areas of the Colony.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207781, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "154\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nAll hospitals and medical services in China were very short of medical supplies both in terms of medicines, anaesthetics, equipment and everyday requirements such as bandages and sheets. In addition, in a time of inflation, assets were put into easily saleable form of which medicine, such as quinine, was a favourite. This meant that there was little western medicine for sale in the open market and supplies of such materials, whether in store or in transit, were a favourite target for thieves. However the greatest losses in the Nationalist armies were undoubtedly from the malnutrition/dysentery cycle from which, beyond a certain point, there was no recovery.\n\n3 The daily routine on the road varied with the fuel used, but there were common features. The driver and mechanic (or assistant if carried) slept on the truck, the shorter in the cab and the taller on top of the cargo. This helped to prevent theft of cargo and removal of parts such as headlamps and half-shafts which were in great demand. Passengers slept in the nearest inn, or perhaps mission station. Techniques for an undisturbed and loss-free night in an inn included an oiled sheet (p.8) sewn into the bottom of the mosquito net which was then slit at one end and fastened with clips, and placing the bed or table legs into shoes to make unauthorized removal of them difficult.\n\nActivity started at dawn and after refuelling and a check on wheels and springs a quick breakfast of ji dan dou jiang (p.8) taken from a travelling salesman, the truck would get under way. There would normally be a stop at a convenient fandian (p.8) between 10.30 and 12 noon- refuelling, wheel and spring checks and away again until late afternoon and a stop for the day.\n\nLiquid fuel was carried in 50 (US) gallon drums and was siphoned out into 5 gallon cans for transfer to the truck tank. A skilled man, using a rubber hose, can induce a siphon by sucking at the end and avoid getting his mouth full of raw alcohol, rape seed oil or whatever the fuel might be. Operation and refuelling of the charcoal burning trucks was a much longer and dirtier procedure and is described in the section devoted to them.\n\n4 The Sentinel/HSG trucks had an interesting history. With the loss of the coastal region and the main railway lines, China had not only lost the possibility of importing diesel fuel and petrol but had gained a number of experienced, but unemployed, steam railway engine drivers and firemen. The IRC decided to enquire into the possibility of steam road transport and got in touch with the Sentinel Steam Carriage and Wagon Co. Ltd. at Shrewsbury, England, the major manufacturer in the past of steam road engines. The transport would use local coal or charcoal fuel and the available engine drivers and firemen. However, the tare weight of steam wagons is high and the gross weight would have been greater than the bridges would have stood. The Sentinel company suggested an alternative. They had recently taken up the designs of the High Speed Gas engine and offered a 5 ton capacity truck fitted with a 4 cylinder horizontal HSG engine with a 12:1 compression ratio. This burnt producer gas made from charcoal in a gas generator of the cross-draught type. Four of these Sentinel/HSG were purchased and may have been the first (and possibly only) ones built. One of these had been lost on the Burma Road and the remaining three contributed to the death of one man, resignation of another, and almost broke the hearts of several other Unit members. It should be a cardinal point never to introduce any equipment, mechanical or electrical, into a tough environment lacking supporting services, unless it has been in series production and has been thoroughly tested in similar conditions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207814, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "THE ANCIENT MON--PAGAN, PERU & NAKORN PATHOM 187\n\nend of the last century. The iron shed that covers it exactly reproduces the architecture of railway stations at the turn of the century, and the quality of the decoration is likewise Burmese Victorian. The clumsiness of the feet, which are iconographically incorrect, does not however apparently disturb the local people in their veneration of the statue. The four-imaged Kyaikpan pagoda is much ruined; the Buddha's back on to a central solid square core. It was originally built by Dhammaceti (Damuazedi), a Mon king of great piety who reigned from 1472-1492. The images, of plaster on brick, have been much restored.\n\nRangoon was at first a Mon village called Dagon centred around the Shwedagon pagoda, the origins of which are lost in time. The shrine is said to cover a number of the Buddha's relics. The Mon king Binnya-U is recorded to have raised the height of the stupa to sixty-six feet in 1362. The present height of 326 feet was reached in 1774. The shape is that common in Burma, of a square base to the main terrace for the pradakshina, then the beginning of the bell after a square base with recessed edges: multiple mouldings, the bud and the hti follow. The whole is gilded where it is not actually covered with gold plates and the hti is gilded and encrusted in stones. Of perhaps greater interest are the innumerable baroque shrines round the bases of the stupa and the vast crowds of pilgrims coming for their devotions. By night the illuminated gold stupa is to be seen from the distance in impressive display.\n\nThere are no other monuments in Rangoon of interest; the Sule pagoda, reputed to be ancient, is a modern jumble. The bargaining in Scott's market or the buying in the diplomatic shop is more representative of the capital today. But the National Museum, consisting almost exclusively of the relics of Thibaw's regalia taken by the British and kept until quite recently in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, have now been returned and are well displayed. They have often been described before; the luxury of the jewel-encrusted objects, the ornamental hamsa, and the robes are in complete contrast with the austerity and constraints of present day Burma.\n\nIn Rangoon can be seen a 'cultural show' representing various traditional dance forms. The uncourtly little jumps and hops in the classical dances are as surprising as they are interesting. But the soul of Burmese dance and entertainment is not in this, nor in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207824, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 212, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n197\n\nto the problem of ensuring law and order by means of administra-tive, legal, and police measures which in effect left people as much as possible to their own devices. But however much an adminis-tration may seek to preserve traditional institutions and modes of behaviour and very superficially the pre-war New Territories Administration resembled a Chinese form of Government—it inevitably produces some changes which spring from the framework of its own rules. One change immediately brought about in the New Territories was the removal of political and economic power from certain clans, mainly in the west, which, under the Chinese regime, had exercised control over considerable areas by virtue of their access to the government and their tax privileges. More fun-damentally, however, the new regime set into decline a system of local leadership which had hitherto rested on principles inherent in imperial Chinese society.\n\n13. At the edge of China the county of San On (about three-fifths of which became the New Territories in 1898) was not remarkable for producing scholars, but, as an integral part of the Empire, it sent its men into the examinations and, as a result, furnished the country with some administrators. I have not yet had the oppor-tunity of checking the examination quotas operating at the end of the century, but at its beginning—I do not have the source by me as I write there was a quota of eight graduates at each three-yearly examination at Canton for San On, and an additional quota of two for the county's Hakka population. (In the last decades of the Empire, moreover, the sale of examination equivalents was very common; the number of titled scholars in San On was therefore likely to be considerably greater than that suggested by examination quotas). According to Lockhart, who surveyed the New Territories in 1898, there were about 150 sau ts'oi* in the county. See J.W. Hayes, \"The Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2, 1962, p. 11. Those who studied for the examinations were com-paratively few, and they were almost certainly members of clans, and families within these clans, which, by reason of their riches and connexions, were in a privileged position. But the idea was widespread that all respectable men (a category including all the farmers) were eligible to offer themselves for examination and, ultimately, to assume administrative office. And there existed many schools in the countryside to set children going on the ladder", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207836, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 224, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH In the N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n209\n\n30. Were they elders? In the situation found by the first British administrators I think we may distinguish four kinds of ‘leader', all of whom, at some time or other, might be labelled with the English word 'elder'. There were the gentry (shan sz) the titled scholars and their relatives, marked off definitely in their cultural and political status. They were of course few in number and distributed very unevenly among the villages. We come next to three groups to whom the term fu lo might be applied. There were village constables ('ti-pao') and the heads of such other official groupings as a particular magistrate might choose to recognise; these men forming the routine channel between state and people, were subject to the contempt of both and only in foreign eyes, and then only sporadically, might be seen to be such persons as merited the title of 'elder'.\n\n31. When we turn to the next group we are in the realm of clan organisation. In the language of anthropologists, the clan was segmented. That is to say, the clan as a whole was socially and ritually a unit in respect of the main ancestral hall, but within it lesser units crystallised about more immediate ancestors in such a way that, in the most developed systems, there was a complex of lesser units nesting within greater, each unit being in principle defined in terms of an ancestral hall and its associated estate. (This is a big subject which hardly bears summary treatment; for all the qualifications which I should ideally have entered here I must refer the reader to my Lineage Organization in Southeastern China, London, 1958.) Every unit defined in the hierarchy from household at the bottom to the clan at the top was headed, in theory at least, by a man who came to his position by his seniority in generation and age. The clan-head was the oldest man in the most senior surviving generation. (He might not be the oldest man in the clan, for he might be younger than a member of a generation below him; and in such cases his generation seniority might be waived in favour of the older man). Similarly, in the primary segments (fong) into which the clan was divided, usually on the basis of descent from the several sons of the founder, the heads were the oldest men in the senior generation. And likewise in the lesser segments (also called fong). These were the elders of the clan.\n\n32. But since they came to their position by the natural processes of biology and time, there was no safeguard against the accession", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207849, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 237, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "222\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\n53. Graves and dwellings are placed in accordance with such elementary principles and by means of an elaborate scheme of ideas based upon and extending them. But fung shui is not only Winds and Waters. Other principles are involved. The stars must be taken into account. The geomancer's compass shows, by the number of circles on it, a given sum of criteria by which a site is to be selected and oriented. Over and above all this, there comes from the tradition of the Book of Changes an idea of the cosmos (of which man is an intrinsic part) in a perpetual state of flux; that which is so at one point in time is not so at another. Things, and the fortunes of men with them, change. So that within cycles of time, definable by well-recognised principles (the sexagenary system of 'stems and branches' among them), the virtues of any site may change, however expertly it was chosen in regard to the ‘landscape'. Geomancy becomes a body of learning the complexity of which is represented to the layman by the compass, the books, and the experience of practitioners. Ordinary men know a little, and they know that they do not know enough to rely in important matters on their own judgment. The fung shui lo, as he may be called behind his back, or the fung shui sin shaang, as he is addressed, enters the scene. And he is very much in evidence in the New Territories. District Officers meet him from time to time. The field worker with a little patience can enjoy his company.\n\n54. The complexity of fung shui is a guarantee of its continued credibility. If it works it works. If it fails to work, a neglected principle, an ignorant geomancer, an undetected alteration to the landscape can be held responsible. From the point of view of the outsider geomancy may seem completely irrational, but once grant that man, dead or alive, is part of a universe with which his fortunes are inextricably interwoven, and the reasoning of geomancy can be seen to fall into a logical pattern. And the surviving strength of the appeal of fung shui to the minds of Chinese rests precisely on what seems to them to be its reasonableness; the more rational the minds the greater the degree of rationalisation produced to support what only extreme rationalism rejects. Fung shui is not like most of the rest of Chinese religion; no reliance on the will of a deity is involved; there are no gods to serve and placate; it is not superstitious for it is based on self-evident propositions; the principles which regulate the cosmos are fixed, known, and subject to exact treatment by experts who, in the performance of their duties, are like", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207874, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 262, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "85. It is obvious that the Administration has given much thought to the technical problems of land tenure, and there is probably little that I could contribute to the discussion of them. On the other hand, there are certain kinds of facts that the Administration would presumably like to know and some sociological analysis that would be of service to it which the field worker would be in a position to supply. Let me take an example from land in relation to clan structure. There was a time when wealth was regularly invested in the establishment of estates attached to ancestral halls in such a way that new branches (fong) of the clan came into being; and these estates were added to on occasion. The system of founding new estates-cum-ancestral halls is now generally (perhaps completely) dead, for segmentation (see paras. 31-3 above) is no longer an important feature of the clan; but the existing estates have waxed and waned in modern times and accordingly affected the areas of land to which members of the relevant clan units have had access for cultivation. These estates have grown by bequests and purchase, and they have diminished by being divided up among constituent members, but in this latter regard the powers given to the District Officer* may well have slowed down in the New Territories a process of disintegration which was much commented on elsewhere in southeastern China in the present century. That is to say, the District Officer, by taking general opinion into account instead of giving a free hand to managers, has made the system more democratic and the estates more difficult to break up; in China itself the managers wielded greater independent authority. (Although the estates continue to exist the halls associated with them are often no longer kept in repair. I stood in the ruins of one of them one day to hear a villager comment: 'In the old days when there was no emigration our ancestors could manage to put up a fine hall. Now, when the men go overseas and to town and make money, they can't repair what was built long ago.' But there are some interesting exceptions. An ancestral hall was recently rebuilt in San Tin in a modern style; most of the money for the work seems to have come from emigrants in the United Kingdom). The estates associated with ancestral halls are one kind of tso; other kinds of tso have been created and dissolved, as when small groups of kinsmen have for a time held property in common. In many settlements there appears to be a constantly shifting patchwork of\n\n* Under Section 27 of the New Territories Regulation Ordinance, No. 34 of 1910—Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208084, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CEREMONIAL LIFE OF 2 MULTI-SURNAME VILLAGES\n\n107\n\nP'ing village of Lung-tsai She and Pasternak's Taiwan village of Tatich was no less striking. Firstly, Lung-tsai She practised residential segregation whereas Tatich was a mixed community. Secondly, there were no marriage ties among the lineages in Lung-tsai She whereas there were considerable intra-village marriages in Tatieh. Lastly, Lung-tsai She members participated in the rituals of ancestral halls outside their village. The same was not true of Tatieh. From these differences, it is possible to conclude that despite their similarities, the Hoi-p'ing village of Lung-tsai She was never as integrated as the Taiwan village of Tatieh studied by Pasternak.\n\nThis study, as well as C. K. Yang's A Chinese Village in Early Communist Transition (Cambridge, 1959 pp. 26, 42-3, 81, 93-109), confirms the hypothesis that multi-surname villages in South China could not achieve the same degree of social cohesion as villages in Taiwan. The reason is that there were outside forces drawing members of each lineage away from their fellow villagers. This can be readily seen in the Hoi-p'ing case if we examine the relationship between the Kwaan of Na-loh, the Kwaan of Lung-tsai She and the Kwaan of T’oh-fuk.\n\nThe Kwaan of Na-loh Ts'uen was a segment of the localized lineage of the T'oh-fuk Kwaan, one of the most prominent in Hoi-p'ing in terms of numerical power, corporate property and the number of traditional and modern scholars. It controlled Che-hom which was one of the most important market-towns and ferry centres along the T'aam River. Its gentry members often acted as spokesmen and defence leaders of Hoi-p'ing as a whole. Thus, it was not surprising that the Kwaan of Na-loh could afford to ignore the Oo of the same village.\n\nThe Kwaan of Lung-tsai She was geographically separated from the Kwaan lineage at T'oh-fuk. They attended the T'in-sam Market (...) as their standard market town. However, in the late 1920's when public roads were built, they preferred to do business in Che-hom which they could reach by bus in half an hour. The latter market town was developing into a wholesale centre. This induced the peasants and shopowners from Lung-tsai She to go there since they could usually buy a greater variety of consumer's goods at a lower price and sell their farm produce at a higher price. Moreover, after 1930, when a Heung office (...) was established in Che-hom as the administrative headquarters of the Kwaan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208091, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "114\n\nGREGORY E. GULDIN\n\nand Tsat Tsz Mui Road became the foci of middle-class Shanghaiese life in Hong Kong (see Fig. 1). If there was ever a time that North Point had a majority non-Guangdongese population, this was it.*\n\nBy the early 1960s, however, changes had occurred in North Point which were having a profound effect on the area's demographics. A high-rise apartment building boom, replacing many of the post-war three or six-storey structures with 20-storey buildings, had led to an oversupply of apartments and a consequent drop in rents. Middle-income Guangdongese, who had been moving into North Point slowly but surely throughout the 1950s, could now afford to live in the once exclusive neighborhood and they poured into the area. Soon they found themselves the overwhelming majority not only in the high-rise buildings but in all of North Point as well.\n\nThe Shanghaiese, certainly, could not fill all the empty spaces, for their immigrative tide had already begun to ebb. Since the late 1950s, there had been a net outflow of Shanghaiese from North Point as those who had found ways to replenish their wealth moved to richer areas and the many who had not adjusted so well, pauperized and forced into lower-status occupations, were no longer able to afford the high rents of Fort Street and North Point and also moved away. With a dearth of available Shanghaiese residents, the old system by which North Point's Shanghaiese had maintained their neighborhood's Shanghaiese identity by permitting only Shanghaiese (or approved others) entry into their three-storey buildings — rapidly collapsed under the sudden challenge of the seemingly cavernous 20-storey high-rises. As the Shanghaiese began to leave, another minority population, the Fujianese, began to arrive in North Point in greater and greater numbers until their total eventually surpassed their predecessors' and \"Little Shanghai\" was eclipsed by \"Little Fujian.\"\n\n+\n\nTo \"Little Fujian\"\n\nMost Fujianese who arrived in North Point in the late 1950s to form the basis of a future \"Little Fujian\" community had ironically already been living in a Fujianese community. Since the early 1950s, the few thousand Fujianese resident in Hong Kong had been living in Hong Kong Island's Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Poon districts, areas close to the city's commercial and trading centers. As the Fujianese (along with the Guangdongese) are one of Southern China's peoples who have adopted the strategy of seeking overseas", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208102, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "\"LITTLE FUJIAN (FUKIEN)\"\n\n125\n\nnity\" should be reserved for ethnic social interaction and organization. If this divorce were to be granted it would clear up much confusion in the writings on neighborhood and community. We would thus realize that the disagreement between Joy/Lieberson and Drieger/Church is due to their concern with neighborhood on the one hand and community on the other.\n\nApplication of such insights to Hong Kong's Fujianese helps us to evade the myopia that Fox (1977: 12) and others have recognized in all too many urban \"community\" studies. Viewing the city as a whole we are thus free to conceptualize the Fujianese community of Hong Kong as a somewhat dispersed entity - stretching from parts of North Point, to parts of other neighborhoods, and to the offices of the Fujian Commercial Association in Sheung Wan. Little Fujian as a local community is thus just one part of the larger Fujianese community of Hong Kong and cannot be understood without reference to it, just as village life cannot be fully grasped without a wider social perspective.\n\nSimilar insights into the Shanghaiese community yield quite a different reading of the Shanghaiese status quo. Their ethnic sub-neighborhood, Little Shanghai, is gone, with only pale reminders of its once thriving communality dotting North Point's urban landscape. Yet a Shanghaiese community definitely persists in Hong Kong as both formal organizations and informal sociocultural patterns help maintain a level of interactional intensity sufficient for a \"sense of ethnic community.\" Of course the study of such a community presents far greater methodological and analytical difficulties than are usually encountered in most urban studies. Communities based in clearly recognized and spatially distinct ethnic (sub-) neighborhoods are far easier to deal with; it is no wonder urban anthropologists have preferred to map out such discrete and concentrated domains.\n\nSuch urban studies have been likewise drawn to communities with well-organized and formal social structures. These studies (Charsely 1974; Drieger and Church 1974; McBeath 1973; Neville 1975) have stressed the importance of formally organized institutions in giving that \"sense of ethnic community\" to otherwise anomic and isolated ethnics. Drieger and Church even go so far as to suggest (1974:36) that whenever an ethnic group's proportion of the population approaches 25% there is a corresponding tendency", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208117, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 156, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "140 \n\nW. J. HINTON \n\nnot so very different in their essence from those of greater cities. \"Aes alienis\" is much the same all the world over. \n\nFarther west a rope walk stretches back across several streets on the landward side, where they are twisting a mighty bamboo cable for the big junk being built in the Yard at the end of the bay. On the seaward side one of the long dark houses frames a picture of the bay and the ships seen through a verandah three rooms distant; within is the rich glow of lacquer chest. It is a picture for a Dutch master. For the most part the well-built doorways are closed by lacquered or painted doors or screens. We are in the West End; the crowd is thinner, but the dogs, pigs, fowls, and cats, if anything, more densely strew the scene. Through little lanes and alleys, we can see the Hoklo boats drawn up on the beach or riding a little from the land. Their owners are busy about them or putting out to fish with net and line in neighbouring bays. \n\nA dry nullah, and we are on a flight of steps leading to the terrace of the Pak Tai Temple. This terrace is a spacious place at times covered with a huge matshed theatre, which will house all the population that can leave home or junk for the show. Just now, it is occupied by children and by two parties of fishermen making fishing lines of some tough fibre on a primitive bamboo contrivance doubling and redoubling the thread. Under the groves, we see the eaves of another and smaller temple, and the tall wooden dyeing vats in which the nets are dyed blue and so made invisible to fishy eyes in the blue water. \n\nThe Pak Tai Temple must await another visit, for dusk has fallen, and bright lights are burning on the junks. There is no moon, but the stars are reflected in the still water. On the stern of every junk, the little cooking stoves glow, and family groups crouch round the rice bowl, half-illuminated by the glow, or brightly lit by a fishing flare where such extravagance can be afforded. Our yacht lies far out, and we hire a sampan, sitting side by side in the middle while the woman plies the \"ulch\" like a Venetian gondolier, crooning meantime to the baby on her back. Now we are among the junks, and the water lanes are full of small craft loaded with miscellaneous wares. A pedlar dips his paddle and cries his wares set out in a tray on his tiny dug-out. Sampans carry happy parties going ashore, or quiet ones coming off to their floating homes. There are no noisy parties of drunken sailors, but plenty of jollity and even a little horseplay here and there. Our boat moves", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208171, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "194\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nFROM\n\nPERSONNEL.\n\nTO\n\nShing Mun Lo Wai 251\n\nPak Shek Wo\n\nPei Tau To\n\nShek Tau Kin\n\nFu Yung Shan\n\nS | Kann Tie 3H\n\nWo Hop Shek\n\nNam Shui Po\n\nTsat Sing Kong\n\nPing Kong\n\nFung Yuen (Yue Kok)\n\nShek Ku Lung\n\n5 | Pan Chung\n\n25 276\n\n31\n\n13\n\n44\n\n126 126\n\n82\n\n7 27\n\n116\n\n46\n\n51\n\n27\n\n124\n\nNam Fong To\n\n28 28\n\nTai Pei Lek Ho Pui\n\n4\n\n11 15\n\n11 23 46 46\n\n126\n\n540 79 11 23 46 46\n\n7 103 855\n\npersons\n\nThe greater part of the new village sites is on Crown land. It has been necessary to purchase a small area of private land included in the sites, at a total cost of $1,055.51. A further sum of $2,783.80 compensation for fruit trees unavoidably involved brings this figure to $3,839.31.\n\nSite Preparation: The cost of preparing the sites for the new villages is shown in the following table: ---\n\n \n Kam Tin\n $ 5,000.00\n \n \n Tsat Sing Kong\n 1,300.00\n \n \n Pan Chung\n 10,000.00\n \n \n Shek Ku Lung\n 500.00\n \n \n Ping Kong\n 1,000.00\n \n \n Wo Hop Shek\n 1,700.00\n \n \n Nam Shui Po\n 5,000.00\n \n \n Fung Yuen\n 7,000.00\n \n \n \n $31,500.00\n \n\nThis work will be done exclusively by Government, and provision has been made in the 1928 Estimates to cover the expenditure.\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208294, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 18, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "casualty of change and not fashionable in post-war Far Eastern socio-anthropological studies, it is important to make collections and record ways of life that have become rare and almost extinct. This Journal plays a part in preserving a record of the local past, but greater efforts are required in the field. The passing of these material objects, and of the special skills and vocabulary associated with them, impoverishes the human scene, and its spirit. It also reduces what we hand onto succeeding generations unless it is recorded. We who are generally privileged to live in periods of change have a responsibility to note and record what we have destroyed. With that thought, I leave those with the capacity to work in this field and those, whether institutions or private parties, who have the financial means to support them. Much is being done; I suspect more than one person can possibly know. For this we should be thankful: but even more effort is required.\n\nMarch 1979.\n\nHON. EDITOR", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208428, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "136 \n\nC. MARTIN WILBUR \n\nmunity.1 Kin status is for all practical purposes also a prerequisite. To be a village elder a man must stand at the head of a large clan or family, and the more powerful the group behind him, the greater will be his influence. Age is a second value which custom requires, although this is losing its force in many places today. Ability, specifically scholarship, is the third desirable quality for village leadership. Scholarship, whether of the old or the modern style, almost universally brings leadership, both because of the traditional reverence for learning, and because the man of letters is able to talk on a plane of ease and familiarity with officials of the government higher up, a thing which the common villager can never do. \n\nThe traditional village leaders have behind them several very powerful psychological supports for their authority. The first of these is custom: all that is carried over from the familist system such as reverence for age, respect for status, and the habit of obeying vested authority. The central government, at least up until very recently, recognized them as the responsible authority in the village, and thus added to their prestige. Also, they hold their position partly because of their practical ability, their wisdom, and their popularity. At the same time these leaders are constantly protecting and reinforcing the customary values to which they owe their influence. \n\nOne of the most obvious indications of change in village government today is the emergence of a new type of leader in rural affairs. In villages where the influence of new forces has begun to penetrate, men who lack the traditional qualifications for leadership are beginning to assume an importance in village polity. These are men of natural ability who are able to exert power by inspiring and leading small, discontented groups, or the mob generally, to an opposition of \n\n+ \n\n1 Maybon, B.; Essai sur les Associations en Chine, p. 192 points out that throughout all associations in China runs this common trait of “particularism”. He says: \"Entre les members d'une association existe toujours un lien de communauté. la commune n'est ouverte qu'aux habitants originaires des villages, à l'exclusion des aubains.\" From the point of view of the central government, speaking historically, it was only possible for a man to change his political residence (i.e. to become a member of a village other than that of his ancestral home) if the family from which he came had been destroyed. Then if he were the head of a family of his own, had been a registered land owner for twenty years in his new home, could speak the dialect properly, and were an honorable character, his name might be transferred to the local Yüan Chi (§#) or register which fixed his political residence. Bazin; \"Recherches sur les Institutions Administrative et Municipales de la Chine\" II, p. 258. On this point see also Boulais, Guy: Manuel du Code Chinois, p. 161-162.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208430, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "138\n\nC. MARTIN WILBUR\n\ncenters. The occurrence of this Ti-pao complicates the discussion of village government for several reasons. In the first place, when his position is firmly established he seems to infringe somewhat upon the purely democratic nature of village government, because he usurps many of the duties of the elders. Secondly, the fact that his authority is not always equally great makes it difficult to fit him into the picture of the free village, for the greater his power from above the less complete may the self-government be said to be. For the present this individual will be left out of the discussion, though it must be remembered that his existence as an underling of the Hsien government does modify theoretic village government.\n\nThe village temple is the recognized center of government in the village. Usually it has a minor religious significance, being dedicated to some beneficent deity such as the god of literature, of war, of mercy, or of rain, who is calculated to bring a particular blessing to the village. More essentially it is the social center of the village and the seat of government, a sort of town hall. This temple enjoys what amounts to a corporate existence; it has perpetual being, owns property, can buy and sell and enter into contract, and it acts through a body of officers, a council, which is regularly elected. Many typical administrative duties in the village are undertaken by the temple, through its council, for the civic good.\n\nThis council is either composed of all the heads of various families in the village, or more probably of a group elected or taken in rotation from among the heads of families. It receives no recognition from the central government, being an internal administrative body pure and simple, handling village business only. It meets whenever village business needs to be discussed or attended to. Bazin reports that minutes (Pao tan) are kept of these meetings, one set in grass characters to be passed around among the villagers, and a second, more complete in large characters to be pasted upon the door of the temple. Whether this is an usual practice, however, it is impossible to say.\n\nIII\n\nFirst among the administrative duties of the village temple is the handling of village finances. There are various sources of revenue.\n\n1 Leong and Tao; Village and Town Life in China, p. 34.\n\n2 Bazin; op. cit., I, p. 64.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208447, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n155\n\njudged according to the intrinsic moral value which it has, measured by the supposedly-known natural law. Government measures are therefore obeyed, in so far as they correspond with this popular sense of rightness, not merely because it is positive law.\n\nA partial explanation of the situation may also be found in the philosophy of Taoism, which stresses an indifference to government. Several factors make this hypothesis seem correct. Taoism is strongest in rural districts; in fact, it arose out of the conditions of rural life. Its doctrines, moreover, apply to the life of the village more than do those of Confucianism, which better fit the urban and ruling classes. One of the central doctrines of Taoism is Wu Wei (§) “inaction”, and one of its precepts is that the best government is no government. But such a force is entirely unmeasurable, and the hypothesis can only be advanced for what it is worth.2\n\nTimes occur, it is true, when Hsien government becomes intolerable to the people. In such cases, the first impulse with the Chinese villager is not, as with us, to elect representatives to go as a delegation to make complaint. Rather, the whole village is liable to rise up to a man, armed with what weapons and implements are at hand, and to descend upon the Yamen to demand redress. Demonstrations of this sort are quite embarrassing to the magistrate, for if wind is gotten of them by his superiors, he is liable to be heavily punished. This direct method of self-assertion on the part of the people is therefore often quite effective.\n\nThese two attitudes, on the one hand a positive avoidance, and on the other a profound indifference to the central government, are basic in the relations of the people toward any government greater than their own village polity. And it is these two attitudes, inherited from the Ch'ing dynasty, which will be among the chief obstacles to any form of democratic and representative government which the Republic may attempt to establish.\n\nV\n\nAs a conclusion to this chapter, it seems appropriate to outline the most recent developments in rural government under the Republic, and to indicate something of what the future may bring.\n\n1 Duyvendak, J. J. L.; The Book of Lord Shang, p. 129-130.\n\n2 For this idea, the writer is indebted to Dr. D. W. Lyon, in a conversation on Dec. 12, 1932.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208496, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "204\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nlict until demolition commenced in November 1953 and a block of government flats was erected. This more modern and far less attractive building was originally to be known as \"Marble Hall Flats\" but is now called Chater Hall. What seems to be some of the brickwork associated with Sir Paul Chater's home can still be seen near the site.\n\nHong Kong, June 1979\n\nA Note on Sources\n\nPETER WESLEY-SMITH\n\nThe photographs were contained in the Governor's despatch to the Colonial Office written when the gift of Marble Hall to the Hong Kong Government seemed to be about to take effect. See Clementi to Amery, No. 475, 23 Nov. 1926: C.O.129/498. Also included with the despatch were extensive plans of the house and a description provided by the Public Works Department, Hong Kong. Short biographical notices of Sir Paul Chater appear in Arnold Wright (ed.), Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai etc. (London: Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Co., Ltd., 1908), pp. 107-8 (there is a photograph of Marble Hall at p. 156) and W. Feldwick (ed.), Present Day Impressions of the Far East etc. (London: The Globe Encyclopedia Co., 1917), pp. 518-20. See also Nigel Cameron's brief history of The Hong Kong Land Company Ltd., published in 1979. Further (though scanty) information can be discovered in the various reported cases on Chater's much-litigated will; see (1927) 22 H.K.L.R. 80; (1927) 22 H.K.L.R. 89; (1930) 24 H.K.L.R. 43; (1936) 28 H.K.L.R. 1; (1937) 157 T.L.R. 376 (on appeal to the Privy Council); (1949) 33 H.K.L.R. 283. Chater was authorised to embark on pier and wharf schemes by ordinances Nos. 4 and 19 of 1884. After his death, the Chater Masonic Scholarship Fund Ordinance (No. 25 of 1929, now cap. 1007, L.H.K. 1975 ed.) was passed. His collection of pictures is catalogued in James Orange, The Chater Collection: Pictures Relating to China, Hong Kong, Macao, 1655-1860 (London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd., 1924).\n\nI am much indebted to Mr. J. F. G. Marshall, of the Public Works Department, Hong Kong, for information he painstakingly gathered several years ago on the postwar history of Marble Hall. Hong Kong, September, 1979\n\nPETER WESLEY-SMITH", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208724, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "154\n\nproposed by Baity.\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nWhat is disappointing in the latter's book, is the lack of an attempt to define what the popular religion is, or how he sees it. He limits his discussion to temple types and their characteristics, but by this very fact cripples his argument: temples and temple types, once again, are not the only component of the folk religion: the basis is too narrow to define the religious system of the people.\n\nWhere the author discusses the ancestral cult and community cult (pp. 87-96 and 96-104), I feel that the contrast between them is over-emphasized. In fact, both are complementary rather than contradictory aspects of one reality. Both are expressions of the people's religion, just as family and community in general are two complementary social phenomena. Although tensions may arise, both aspects are equally necessary and have to be kept in balance.\n\nMoreover, in this important discussion, one looks in vain for a definition of community or community cult, community temple. Yet, this is a set of crucial concepts; if they are not defined, the sense of ambiguity keeps lingering on. The author occasionally comes close to a vague definition, as when he writes: \"The identification of the deity with the new geographical community is underlined by the frequent claim that the god belongs to them personally. Gods are not only identified with the villages, towns and cities they control, but the deity statues and sometimes the temples themselves are claimed to be public property belonging to the entire community.\" (p. 100). One can almost extract a definition from these lines: a community cult is the worship of a particular deity (deities) by a group of people forming a natural community, usually defined by geographical boundaries and by cultural homogeneity.\n\nThis worship normally leads to the construction of a temple in which the deity is enshrined. This temple is community property and is administered by a committee, appointed by the community (or by the deity). The deity chosen is one that reflects the ideals and needs of the particular community and serves as a unitive and protective symbol,\n\nThe geographical area in which the cult is centered is variable from small hamlets to villages and towns. Since in modern times the old patterns of community have greatly changed, there is naturally a change toward greater complexity in the community cults as well.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208748, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 205, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "178\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nin Western languages but also in Chinese and Japanese. Many of the writings are hardly known in the West: they include an enormous output of 'morality books' published by temples where there is a divination writing cult. There is, moreover, an abundance of books and articles in related areas, such as anthropology, ethnology and folk-lore, but also a staggering number of works on magico-religious ideas and practices: divination, geomancy, palmistry, astrology, fate-calculation and magic. Add to these the great number of journals and monthlies of various calibre published by scholars, priests, devotees, and temple-committees and one can see that the word complexity is justified. The economic prosperity of Taiwan has evidently influenced the booming of religious literature: the ancient custom of printing edifying texts for the benefit of others in order to increase one's own merits is nowadays no longer beyond the means of many people.\n\n(e) There is, finally, an ever-growing visibility of religious life in Taiwan: new temples and monasteries of various affiliations are built, old ones are repaired, restored, and/or refurnished at great expense. Large festivals, such as the ritual of community or cosmic renewal, are organized with more pomp and greater frequency than ever before. Not only humans are enjoying more prosperity: the gods share the economic progress with better housing, richer food and money offerings and better quality incense.\n\nBesides the officially recognized temples, i.e. those registered at the city hall, department of religion, (approximately 5,000 on the island), there is a growing number of private temples, usually housing a medium-cult: their importance in the community seems to be on the increase.\n\nThe above mentioned five complexities are not exhaustive although they should not deter the researcher from doing more careful field work. They serve here as an excuse for the incompleteness and many inadequacies of my report. Although the validity of the old-fashioned division of Chinese religion into three has recently been the object of doubts and criticism,3 I am still going to use this traditional framework with an important addition: the folk-religion. Very often the distinctions between these four are blurred but there is at least a minimum degree of identity in each of the four, which makes a distinction along these old lines not only useful but very appropriate, if not necessary.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208775, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 232, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "(a) Tung Po Tor \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\n205 \n\nAn article written in 1961 by a well-known writer on Chinese monastic life then resident in Hong Kong (Holmes H. Welch) stated, \"Most Hong Kong monasteries are in the New Territories, built on hill sides, often with a fine view. They usually have an extensive set of buildings, capable of accommodating a much larger number of persons than are actually in residence (a reminder of greater prosperity in times past)\". He continued \"The largest of the colony's monasteries is the Tung Po Tor (4) in Tsuen Wan which has 14 monks, 16 nuns and 30 lay women*.\" \n\nThe Tung Po Tor monastery was founded by a monk from China in November, 1933. The buildings, initially extensive, have been added to over the years, and a guide book of 1954 states: \"There are many small temples and pavilions on the compound around the monastery including the temple of Veda, the temple of the Deva guardians, the temple of the Vihara, the Ng Kwun hall, the guests' hall, the founder's hall etc.\" \n\nThe founder, Mou Fung, was a celebrated abbot of his time. Personal details are given in the biographical section of a 1941 centenary publication on Hong Kong, in English and Chinese, entitled A Century of Commerce. His inclusion, rather surprising at first sight though at least one Chinese Christian clergyman is listed among all the businessmen, gives an idea of his eminence. Also, of the type of Buddhist leader entering Hong Kong in the pre-war years because of unsettled times in China; able to collect funds to buy land and construct large premises for religious use. \n\nThe English version is much shorter than the Chinese text, but gives the salient facts: \n\n\"Buddhist Monk Mao Fung, is 54 years of age. He entered the Buddhist Monastery at Po Wa Shan (†) near Nanking. He then went to the Koon Chung Kong Chi Monastery (✯✯**) near Ningpo. He has studied deeply the Buddhist religion. At present he is in Tsun Wan on the Kowloon side, and is the head of the Tung Po Tho Chi.” \n\n* Mr. Welch explains that \"nuns and lay women devotees may be found in the same institution, living and worshipping separately from the monks. One reason for this type of 'co-educational' arrangement is that only monks can be dharma masters, qualified to teach.\" \n\nHis article, entitled \"Buddhist Organizations in Hong Kong”, is at pp. 98-114, JHKBRAS vol 1 (1961).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208804, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 261, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "234\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nIn providing this detailed and thoughtful account, the writer has done an immense service to the present governments of Malaya and Singapore — indeed of the region — as well as to students of Chinese society old and new. It is of greater value because of his own personal involvement in the business of government and in the fact that, as stated in his preface (p. xiii), he had the enthusiastic support of police officers of all ranks and officers of the Chinese Affairs Department throughout Malaya and Singapore who conducted enquiries, collected information and translated documents. It is doubtful whether this work could be done again — it is mentioned that many of the police documents of the last colonial period have been destroyed and we should be deeply thankful that Blythe was available to undertake it at the time he did.\n\nT\n\nThe book is well produced, on good quality paper with solid binding and clear large type. The 18 illustrations are as notable as the contents.\n\nHong Kong, May, 1980.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n'Friendly Societies are very good,' said Mr. Van Dyke. “But I am referring to secret and dangerous Societies.\"\n\n'These qualifying names are purely arbitrary,' said Tek Chiu. “All Chinese Societies are professedly good, and they, all of them, are just what members choose to make them. There is no fixed principle according to which you can draw a distinction between those that are exclusively benevolent and friendly, and those that you call secret and dangerous societies.'\n\n'Is the Broken Coffin Society entitled to be called friendly, or is it justly designated secret and dangerous?'\n\n'It is justly designated secret and dangerous. It is the fault of our Triad Society, certainly, that such a dangerous and criminal clique is not exterminated at once. Such bad sets of men are like bad teeth that ought to be pulled out. But because a man has a bad tooth in his head, he should not be prohibited from eating.\"\n\nLamont continues: A Chinaman is a social being—a tool rather than a member of his community. If he were to cease living a social life, he would cease to be a Chinaman. The Chinaman abroad lives a large part of his being in the 'hoey. The hoey unites men more closely even than the sons of one father in a family. So powerful is the bond of this Freemasonry of China, that if two brothers in a family belong to different hoeys their relationship in such a set of circumstances is more distant than is that which subsists between those members of one hoey who are not relatives in the ordinary sense at all.\n\nTek Chiu's view, that Chinese societies are what members choose to make them, can also be found in Leong Gor Yun's Chinatown Inside Out (New York: Barrows Mussey, 1936), especially Chapter Two.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208844, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 6, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "205\n\n12 On this particular type of tenancy, see John Kamm, \"Two essays on the Ch'ing economy of Hsin-an, Kwangtung Province”, JHKBRÁS 1977, pp. 55-84, and James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, Folkestone, Kent, England, 1977, pp. 50-53.\n\n13 Ints. Mr. Wong 22.6.81, Mr. Lam Kaap Shau 8.6.81, Mr. Cheung Kau 26.6.81, Mr. Cheung 26.6.81, Mr. Cheng Yung 10.7.81, and Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81; Hugh D.R. Baker, Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village, Guildford and London, 1968, p. 172.\n\n14 Father Sergio Ticozzi, 12.5.81, quoting from Giovanni B. Tragella, Le Mission Estere di Milano, Nel Quadro Degli Avvenimenti Contemporanli, Milan 1950-1963, vol. 1, pp. 274-275, vol. 2, pp. 85, 89, and 314. Int. Father George Carusso, 20.5.81.\n\n15 Ints. Mr. Lok Tak K'ei 17.7.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81, Mrs. Lau 14.6.81, and Mr. Tse Kw'an 16.11.80.\n\n10 Int. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81. Mr. Yau's term for \"moorage inlet\" was \"siu wan t'au\". Cf. also the type of market James Hayes refers to as \"coastal market centres\" in his Hong Kong Region, p. 37.\n\n17\n\nDocuments on this case are included in Kuan T'ien-p'ei, Ch'ou-hai ch'u-chi (1836, n.p., Taipei reprint, 1968) 2/26a-33a, 56a-74a, 80a-99b. Kuan was Naval Commander-in-Chief for Kwangtung from 1834 to 1841. C. Fred Blake, in Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, Hawaii, 1981, p. 46 note 8, states \"Lung Shuen Wan was a traditional outpost for the Chinese imperial navy's regulation of eastern approaches to the Pearl River. I wonder if perhaps Lung Shuen Wan was the original 'coastal market centre' in this area?\" Elsewhere (loc. cit. and p. 95) he points out that the Lung Shuen Wan Tin Hau Temple retained the patronage of the Pak Kong and Sha Kok Mei villagers, despite the greater convenience of the Tin Hau Temple within Sai Kung Market.\n\n18 These are figures of shops as registered in the Block Crown Lease (DD215, DD224). It is more than likely that these were shop spaces rather than shops, and in the event that a shop might take up more than a shop space, there were fewer shops in Sai Kung and Hang Hau in the early 1900's than noted here. For comparison, in 1905, Yuen Long had only seventy-four shops and Tai Po Market twenty-three large and fifteen small ones. See James Hayes, Hong Kong Region, p. 36.\n\n19 Ints. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81, Father George Carusso 20.5.81, Mr. Lei Kan 19.6.81, Mr. Ue Shun Hing 10.7.81.\n\n20 Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81.\n\n21 Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Madam Chiu I Mooi 7.5.81, Mrs. Foo, née Lei, 28.6.81.\n\n22\n\nMrs. Kong Lei San Kiu 21.6.81. Mr. Cheung Kin Wa 10.6.81 of Taai Fung Nin (opened c. 1933) in Sai Kung Market remembered that the shop used to slaughter a pig each day to sell to the boat people.\n\n23 Mr. Chan Kei Shang 28.5.81, Mr. Chan Shou 19.6.81.\n\n24 Mr. Hoh King 6.5.81, Mrs. Lei née So 20.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 13.11.80, Mr. Cheung Ming Shing 8.6.81, Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81. Mrs. Lei used to obtain piglets from Kam Lei Loi in Sai Kung Market. It took six to seven months to fatten them, and two dollars to have each pig carried back to Sai Kung Market. She also had rice and pig feed (chiefly rice husk) from Kam Lei Loi on credit. Kam Lei Loi was a butcher's cum general store, where her husband worked.\n\n25 According to Mr. Yau T'aam Shang, 15.5.81, the interest rate in Sai Kung Market was 5 cents per dollar per month, i.e. 60 percent per annum.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208965, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "SYMBOLISM OF THE NEW LIGHT\n\n95\n\noriginated. K. Schipper's knowledge of the ritual is based on the Taoist tradition of Southern Taiwan; Saso on the other hand gathered his data in Northern Taiwan; so did Mr. Liu, who describes the chiao celebrated in Chung-li (Taoyuan district) and Shulin (Taipei district). Why is M. Saso's term different from Mr. Liu's? And why are there two different appellations in the first place?\n\nThere is no doubt that the two different names refer to the same ritual. One wonders only why neither of the three authors mentions the alternative designation. M. Saso seems to know the expression since his translation 'lighting of the new fire' makes more sense if chu-teng is taken as the Chinese substratum rather than fen-teng.\n\nThis terminology aspect would not concern us so much if it were not an indicator of the basic significance of the ritual itself. In any case, both fen-teng and chu-teng are merely partial designations of a ritual event that we have to examine in greater detail; since the ritual is composed of various successive acts, there is apparently no term available that would indicate all these events: so, each designation necessarily is pars pro toto.\n\nThe ritual is described in minute detail by K. Schipper (pp. 15-25) based on his personal observations made during a chiao festival in the village of Su-ts'u, Taiwan, on March 26, 1967. Five Taoist priests participated in the event, while 4 musicians and an apprentice formed the orchestra. Besides the exceptional visitor, there is a group of laymen representing the whole community. The ceremony takes place in the sacred area of the temple, usually on the first evening of the festival.\n\nThe ritual, as summarized by Schipper, is the first part of a threefold liturgy; the second part is called \"The Rolling up of the Screen\" (\"Enroulement du Rideau\"), the third part is 'Sounding of Bell and Chime' (\"Tintement solennel de la Cloche et de la Pierre Sonore\"). (Parts two and three are left out of the present discussion, but will return to focus in section three of this paper.)\n\nThe fen-teng ritual itself can be divided into five episodes:\n\n(i) an introduction with chanting of purification texts and solemn declaration of the high priest's ritual rank (ca. 5′40′′);\n\n(ii) the striking of the new fire: after invocation of the deities, the lights inside the temple are extinguished. Two assistant-priests", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208992, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "122\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\ntraditional past, and at the same time we can watch the details of the processes of rapid social, economic, and cultural change that come with commercialization, emigration, immigration, and urbanization. All these things and many more are still here, alive, going on all round us, new. Thus social anthropology, like social history, has opportunities here which do not exist anywhere else. Here it is not yet quite too late.\n\nBut—and this is the final reason why the New Territories are so important to-day—even here it very soon will be too late. Even if the year 1997 was not looming so close, the New Towns are; and older people are dying, and younger people are emigrating (as they always have, but now because their wives and children go with them, usually with a greater desire to stay away). I guess we have about five more years—perhaps ten. That perhaps ten. That is why I am so excited when I hear of donations of money for New Territories research, why I am so thankful that Tam Yue-him and David Faure have launched their oral history project, and so delighted that administrators like James Hayes, and Chan Sui-jeung and Patrick Hase who are here to-night are in the positions they are in, and are not only willing but exceptionally able to advise and guide and take part—the British have a long tradition of scholar officials too!\n\nSo now I come to my fifth and final point, and back to our cultural heritage and the opportunities we still have to record it, and, if you will allow me, my own part in the enterprise. I said earlier that so much study has been done that we probably already know a great deal more than we know. In other words, one of the things that is most badly needed at this stage is for someone to go right through all the already existing material and try to put it together. The job is not a small one, for it must cover the whole mass of unpublished and documentary material as well as the published books and articles in several languages, but it would be immensely worthwhile.\n\nIt would have two main aims. The first, which might be called the academic aim, would be to discover exactly what our existing historical and sociological knowledge really is in order both to locate the gaps and to prevent overlapping wasteful reduplication of effort. Talks are already in progress on this important matter: you have heard about the oral history project; in my turn I am in touch with several established scholars both here and overseas, one", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209002, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 164, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "132 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nIs this mismanagement? It can be called mismanagement by all who are dissatisfied: by ardent Maoists and by the proponents of greater liberalization. Teng Hsiao-p'ing must feel sometimes like a squeezed beancake. He will be criticized by some no matter what he does. \n\nThe reader must be tired of articles that breathlessly give eye-witness accounts of the truth about China. There is no simple truth about China, which is too large and complicated a country. Articles about it often tell more about the observer than the observed; and about those on whom the observer depended for his information. This problem is not unique to China. England is complicated. The United States is more complicated. Russia and China are still more complicated. About Russia it is hard to learn because of the paranoid secrecy emanating from the Kremlin. About China it is hard to learn because of its long history of ups and downs, ins and outs, and the tendency of most Chinese to assume that \"behind the curtain\" much is going on that differs from what is going on in public view... \n\nDuring my whole trip in China I never heard any Chinese bring up Mao Tse-tung. His portrait was still everywhere—though I have heard that it is rarer in Canton. There was a very long line of people waiting to enter his mausoleum in Peking. But no guide—no one at all, in fact—brought up the name of Chairman Mao. I had an interesting experience in Nanking. The local head of the China Travel Service gave our tour-group a banquet in order to make amends for a mix-up about our arrival in his city. At the end of the banquet he proposed a toast to friendship between China and the United States, to future tourism, and so on. Then one of our tour group responded by proposing a toast to Mao Tse-tung. I was watching our host's face. He was at a loss. Then, after a moment's pause, he joined in the toast. If I had been he, I would have responded with a toast to George Washington. \n\nI had very good luck in visiting monasteries and meeting monks when I went to Sian, Loyang, Nanking, Soochow, Shanghai, and Peking. I have described some of what I learned in the Far Eastern Economic Review for August 15, 1980. Let me say here only that my good luck was because China is a free country today in a way that the Soviet Union is not. While my tour group went off in a bus to see the sights, I hired a taxi and visited a monastery. Only on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209124, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "FOLK MEDICINE IN BORNEO DIAGNOSIS AND CURE\n\n13\n\nEffectively a man is concerned only with this world and its inhabitants, and under the adat the relations between men and other beings are subject to careful regulation. Every being has its own proper place, its home, if you like; and any other creature who trespasses on his territory commits an offence against the proper order of things, the adat; and trouble follows. The proper place of a man, as I said earlier, is his village, which, when it was a longhouse fortress, was a purely human and manufactured artefact. But in order to live at all a man has to go out of it and cultivate rice and sago. These areas of cultivation are, as it were, partly domesticated and are a semi-human domain. But men share that cultivated territory with other beings - animals, and plants and spirits - and a man is in greater danger there than he is in his village of trespassing on the rights of other creatures, thus bringing about trouble - especially accidents and sickness to himself.\n\nBeyond the semi-human, cultivated zone is the high forest into which men must go to hunt, to fish, and to gather fruit, resins, and other things necessary to life. But a man goes into the forest at his own risk. He shares its use with other beings who probably have greater rights to be there than he has, and he must exercise great caution while he is in it. He often comes back suffering from accidents and illness. To be safe in a tropical swamp jungle needs knowledge, vigilance, and immense luck.\n\nBefore one can understand the trouble which comes from breaking the adat and what that means to a Melanau, we need to know a little about the way in which he thinks a human being is put together. All humans, the Melanau say, are made up of four separate elements: (i) the body; (ii) the soul, which is thought to be a vaporous replica of the body, and which eventually goes to the land of the dead; (iii) the emotions; and (iv) a principle of life that distinguishes animate from inanimate things. For a man to be alive and healthy these four elements must be joined and undisturbed. But the body, in particular, is subject to accidents and illness; and a proper balance of its elements depends partly on a proper balance of hot and cold. The body can easily be disturbed by excessive eating, by exposure to rain and storms, and by an imbalance of hot and cold things. After childbirth, for instance, a woman is particularly subject to cold; and for forty-four days after the birth she must lie by a fire kept alight day and night and eat and drink hot and spicy food. Most illness, however, is attributed to a breach of the adat or an attack by a spirit or even witchcraft. At the onset of an attack by a spirit, or when something else upsets the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209126, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "FOLK MEDICINE IN BORNEO DIAGNOSIS AND CURE\n\n15\n\nto comprehend the environment and live in it with some sense of security. In the adet, which was the codification, so to speak, of the moral system, proper relations with the other orders of being, but especially proper relations with spirits, who in many ways were more powerful than humans, were thought to be critically important to the welfare of men.\n\nBy nature, spirits were said to be intrinsically hasty and rather nasty creatures. They had greater powers than men and all too easily they turned on humans and even hunted them as if they were animals; but if they did so without justifiable cause they broke the adet; and the disorder produced had to be put right. Similarly, if men, who have greater powers than animals and plants, treat them with disrespect, they also break the adet and produce disorder which is likely to react back on them. Certain animals, such as the crocodile, are a real intellectual puzzle because so much about them is anomalous. Not only does a crocodile inhabit land and water, but it also lays eggs like a creature of the air; and worst of all, it flouts all adet by lurking in human villages to hunt men. This can only be explained by the fact that the crocodile's ancestors were once human beings who went to the bad.\n\nIn a world that was seen as ideally orderly, in which all creatures had their correct place, and in which, even if they did hunt one another, it had to be done in moderation and in an orderly way, none of this implied that relations among the inhabitants of the world were in any sense the same or equal. In a village, however formal the relations between members of different ranks might be, they were expected to be basically friendly, whereas those with people of neighbouring villagers or with foreigners were thought to be potentially always hostile, and at times actively dangerous, unless treated with caution. Similarly, relations between spirits and humans were those of co-existence rather than of friendly co-operation. Unguarded behaviour always carried the risk of misfortune or deprivation on one side or the other. Generally speaking, it was the human who suffered more seriously than the spirit for over-stepping the boundaries of proper behaviour, as it is usually animals who suffer more than men in a disrespectful relationship. The consequent suffering, whether in the form of an accident, such as a broken leg, or in some deprivation, such as barrenness or illness, may be regarded as a punishment, or it may be looked on as a warning that an offence has been committed, and that expiation is needed to put things right once again. If a man assaults another in the village, he has trespassed against the proper", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209141, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "30\n\nEDGAR WICK BERG\n\n-\n\nclaims were not settled by the British administration until 1908. Despite the wide prevalence of revenue-claiming practices and institutions, the British recognized only those revenue rights that could be documented. Thus, the raw power and somewhat less raw influence of the Tangs of Kam Tin which underlay their revenue claims, and which the Pat Heung region, at least, had but recently thrown off by force, was not recognized. Only in the fifth circumstances and sometimes the fourth where a perpetual lease document, or perhaps a satisfactory sale document could be produced, were such rights recognized. It is of interest to note that despite the wide prevalence of multiple \"ownership\" noted by early British land officers, only the claims of about 40 \"taxlords\" were sufficiently documented to be recognized, and the land involved amounted to only about 200 acres, in a total New Territories cultivated acreage estimated at 40,000 acres. Those whose claims were so recognized were awarded lands as full owners elsewhere in the New Territories, and the multiple-\"ownership\" system was thus retired.\n\nIt is interesting to note the similarities and differences between the New Territories and Taiwan on these points. In 1900, north Taiwan was 100 to 150 years past the frontier age which had shaped its multi-tiered land system. But by 1900, fewer than 50 percent of the cultivated lands in the north had such arrangements, and when the Japanese put an end to the system in 1905, they were actually following through on an attempt that had been made in the 1880s, under Chinese rule, by Governor Liu Ming-ch'üan to end the multiple \"ownership” system. This is not the place for extensive comparisons, but we may observe in passing that the much greater prevalence of the multi-tiered system in the New Territories in 1900 as compared to Taiwan at the same time may be a result of the much greater importance of clans here than there.\n\nII. The rate of tenancy.\n\n-\n\nHere we are speaking, properly, in terms of a multi-tiered system, of subtenancy: not the taxlord-\"owner\" relationship, to use the early British terms, but the relationship between the \"owner\" and the tenant under him - the man who actually cultivated the land. Much less has been written about tenancy at this level than at the upper-level of taxlord to \"owner\". Understandably, the British interest in 1900 was primarily in determining a single owner who would be responsible for paying the tax. Owners were asked the names of their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209244, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "EDUCATION AS A BY-PRODUCT OF FISH MARKETING\n\n133\n\ngroups of men receiving trophies for rowing, for fishing, or for winning the San Miguel beer-drinking championship. Dragons from the head of dragon boats are also hanging up; the club is very strong on participation in the dragon boat races. A much-used ping-pong table occupies one end of the room; at the other sits a caretaker amid piles of plastic heels: he does a little cobbling on the side. In a nearby restaurant the club holds numerous dinners, where guests are entertained with Chinese opera singing, and modern pop songs. Both present and ex-fishermen attend these dinners; it was estimated that at one I attended no more than 10 percent of those present were still active fishermen, (though this estimate discounted women and children and guests present, such as the San Miguel brewery representative.) Probably a greater proportion belonged to active fishing families.\n\nBefore the war, Mr. Thirlwall said, there had been no policy for the boat-people, and they had been very socially isolated. From his lighthouse he had befriended them, dressed wounds, and had come to prefer their society to that of the uptight land-based Hong Kong Chinese. After the war, the pace of social change had been very fast, bewildering many older people. The fishing industry had contracted, and despite his local efforts there was very little solidarity among the fishermen, and that they were not represented as a community in the government process. Challenged as to whether the Regional Co-operative Federations did not do this job, he responded that the credit societies were just concerned with the operation of the better-off boats; they did not concern themselves with the slow loss of small anchorages to land reclamation, the difficulties of getting settlement without becoming an illegal squatter. It was said that all the boat-people were keen to settle: why then did the Marine Department have to refuse all fresh registrations of houseboats? In fact a community was being broken up, and many of the members of his clubs in Stanley and Chai Wan were no longer active fishermen. But they would defend their rights to be part of the Shui-sheung-yan community. He did not use the word “Tanka”, however, (“In fact, I hate it\"), because it was used by land people to oppress them.\n\nThese two clubs in fact bridged the gap between the well-to-do active fishermen and the poor ex-fishermen, partly because of the very evident affection in which Mr. Thirlwall was held by all sections of the community. The clubs were, in fact, an exception to the general rule among the boat-people, not economic organisations, but quasi-ethnic ones, following a very common Hong Kong Chinese pattern, that of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209248, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "EDUCATION AS A BY-PRODUCT OF FISH MARKETING\n\n137\n\nWhen it does occur, however, the construction of one's Shui-sheung-yan identity as something ethnic, not constrained by one's occupation as fisherman, waiter or student, permits a cool and instrumental approach to education, that is neither a frantic embrace of the hope of escape and social mobility, nor sullen submission to imposed indoctrination. The villagers of Ap Chau value literacy for the pursuit both of their religion and of business. In Scotland they organise voluntary Chinese classes for children.\n\nThe F.M.O. school in Ap Chau stands a little further up the hill than the houses, with two classrooms, living quarters for the staff, a physical exercise ground, and 40 pupils. Among them, living with grandparents, are three children who have actually been sent back from Scotland by their parents, that they might have the advantage of being brought up in Ap Chau - a substantial vote of confidence in the school! Little or no attempt was made by the villagers to convert the teachers; but there was a clear relationship of friendship and respect between villagers and teachers, instanced in such things as the school's fine collection of marine specimens. In some of the other schools in remote locations it was apparent that a much greater social distance was maintained between teachers and parents.\n\nNonetheless, in both of the island schools that I visited, Ap Chau as well as Kau Sai, the teachers were very frank about their hopes that sooner rather than later they would be given a position in one of the F.M.O. schools in the urban area, such as that at Aberdeen. Complaint was made of the isolation of the island and the fact that some of the teachers had houses and families away in the urban areas, that they could visit only at weekends. Even so, neither teachers, nor F.M.O. officials felt that if married quarters were provided, it would lead teachers to inflict also on their families so remote a dwelling-place; it would mean, for example, that their wives would not be able to work. Although most Hong Kong residents complain how overcrowded the territory is, nonetheless, they still prefer the urban area to the empty mountainous greenery (and some recently deserted rice fields) which, contrary to general belief, covers most of the land area of the territory of Hong Kong. It seems regrettable, however, that more effort has not been made to find teachers who take as much pleasure in fresh air, sea and countryside as do the \"remote islanders\" themselves, especially when one bears in mind that “remote” in this context still means no more than 3 or 4 hours journey from the centre of the urban area - less when the underground railway has been fully developed. Perhaps, too, such", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209249, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "138 \n\nTA ACTON \n\nindividuals, though rare in Hong Kong, might find their way through the system more easily if the F.M.O. schools were to become part of the general educational system, which they now so closely resemble. \n\nConclusion \n\nSpeaking at the closing ceremony of the 12th annual summer camp of the F.M.O. schools, at Wukaisha Youth Village, the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Hon. J.M. Riddell-Swan J.P. said: \n\n\"There are clear advantages in completing secondary education, whether a child wishes to follow a career in the fishing industry or ashore. In common with other industries, fishing and fishing vessel technology are advancing rapidly, and the well-educated fisherman will obviously be able to take better advantage of this and so increase family prosperity.' \n\n* 46 \n\nThe two major themes of this education policy appear in this speech: its benefit to the efficiency of the fishing industry, and its contribution to slimming it down (“a career in the fishing industry or ashore”). It is noteworthy, however, that the speaker applies these themes specifically to secondary education. The battle for primary education has already been won (give or take the odd thirteen-year-old who suddenly appears at a remote school, refusing to admit to any previous schooling; but this happens far less often than in Gypsy school projects.). \n\nThis is an indication of how much more educational policies for the Shui-sheung-yan in Hong Kong have \"achieved\" than those for Gypsies in Britain. There has been a much greater penetration by the schools system, and by the dominant attitudes of industrial society to education among the Shui-sheung-yan than among the Gypsies. This paper quoted the SOCO study which showed that 32.5 percent of 263 poor Shui-sheung-yan respondents declared they wanted no more than primary education for their children. If such a question were asked of a sample of nomadic Gypsies in Britain, the figure would be nearer 90 percent, one would guess. \n\nIn Hong Kong progress towards better education for the Shui-sheung-yan is general throughout the territory. The 11 British West Midlands Local Education Authorities, with their claims of achieving 800-1,300 children attending out of their estimated 1,500–2,000 constituency, are merely the brightest spot in Britain. Many other local education authorities are doing nothing, and the Department of \n\n47", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209250, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "EDUCATION AS A BYPRODUCT OF FISH MARKETING\n\n139\n\nEducation and Science, though it has taken an interest, has so far postponed for ten years the fulfilment of promises to give written encouragement to local education authorities.**\n\n49\n\nThere are some obvious reasons for these differences. The F.M.O. schools started some twenty years before the first projects for Gypsies, and the faintly remembered problems of their early years, of continuity, over-age pupils in inappropriate classes, all-age literacy teaching and so forth, were probably more similar to the problems of Gypsy education today than their present problems. There is a much greater drive to social assimilation of the Shui-sheung-yan than of the Gypsies, both in the community itself as well as from the government side. There is a greater availability of government resources in Hong Kong.\n\nTo understand these differences, however, we have to set the education policies in a more general policy context, to look at the overall policy problem that each pariah community seemed originally to present.\n\nIn the case of the Shui-sheung-yan in Hong Kong, it was an economic problem, the necessity, first of regenerating the fishing industry, then in the '50s and '60s of mechanising it, and finally in the '70s, of slimming it down. To carry this out a technologically literate workforce was needed, with appropriate social standing and honour in the community. So the start of an educational policy came swiftly on the heels of an economic policy: fish markets in 1945, schools in 1947. Finally in the 1950s, with the loans to the \"Better Living Societies\", came the beginnings of a housing policy to enable the Shui-sheung-yan to have the domestic culture consonant with their new economic and educational status.\n\nIn Britain a quite different chronology applied to the development of policy concerns. Once Gypsies were no longer being conscripted for military service or agricultural labour, as happened in the Second World War (and was promptly forgotten afterwards!) the initial policy concern was precisely with Gypsies' domestic culture. Gypsy caravan parked on rapidly diminishing amount of open land, giving rise to continuous protests by house-holders, increasingly brutal evictions by British police and council workers, and finally political resistance by Gypsies themselves, demanding places to camp. In 1968 the Caravan Sites Act was passed to try to produce an accommodation between Gypsies and house-dwellers, and on the heels of that came increasing concern for the education of Gypsy children, to further that accommodation (“so they\n\n49", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209251, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "140\n\nTA ACTON\n\ndon't grow up like their parents\" as many an insensitive teacher has put it.) Finally, as concern for the number of sited Gypsies forced onto social security has grown, there has been a little thought for the economy of the Gypsies, shown in such measures as the provision of work areas for scrap metal.\n\nBetween these two situations, then, we can see a structural reversal of policy priorities of stunning simplicity. For the Hong Kong Shui-sheung-yan it was economic policies first, educational policies second, and housing and life-style third. For the British Gypsies it was housing and life-style first, education second, and economic policies a poor third.\n\nThis, incidentally, gives us a possible resolution of the paradox of changing views of ethnicity that we noted on page 126. The Hong Kong Government had an economic problem; contrary to its expectations from the literature, it found it was dealing with an occupational group of fishermen, and not an ethnic group. The British Government had a problem of a clash of life-styles in housing; contrary to its expectations from the literature it found it had an ethnic group to deal with and not merely an occupational group of scrap-dealers and seasonal farm labourers. Ethnic reality, like all other reality, is socially constructed. It almost makes one believe that there might be something in the old metaphor of base and superstructure.\n\nBeneath these structural differences, however, the fabric of the situation is the same. In both cases we are dealing with pariah groups seeking a way out of their pariah status, but still somewhat occupationally, socially and to some extent culturally distinct. Both are linguistically differentiated by the possession of special vocabulary rather than of a completely different language. Both groups have been coming closer to the general community, and both are the objects of general government policies of integration. The same practical difficulties may come up in the classroom. Perhaps the British experiments are marginally more innovative in administration, if not in curriculum; but they remain experiments, very patchily implemented. The administrators of the F.M.O. schools (there are only three administrative staff for the whole system) have to run a very tight ship, but they do so with great dedication and enthusiasm, and since their education policy is rooted in economic concern, have been able to pursue it with much greater vigour and success than British Gypsy education policy, this would seem, then, to be a case when educational policy does make a difference; at least, when there is a difference waiting to be made.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209392, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "27\n\nLok Fu Estate. I did, however, hear of such misuse during my earlier research in other districts.\n\n17 It might be mentioned here that a number of MAC office-holders, most often the chairmen, are asked to participate on other community organizations, thereby representing the MAC and forming a link between it and the organization. The nature of such links varies from committee to committee, but membership on the Area Committee is common. For example, nearly all the chairmen of Lok Fu Estate MACS participate in the Lok Fu Area Committee. Participation on such outside organizations increases the duties of the office-holders, as they must carry back to the MAC information and announcements for dissemination.\n\nIn a few committees, these items were purchased by the officers (usually the chairman) and donated to the committee. Other committees have applied to the Sir David Trench Fund. This fund, made up of a sports grant from the Council for Recreation and Sports, can be used to pay for sports equipment such as table tennis tables. Applications are invited once a year, usually in September or October. At that time, the District Office sends the temporary community organizer to each MAC, to ask the chairman if any equipment is desired. If so, the forms are completed and forwarded to the City and New Territories Administration by the District Office. The forms are tabulated and the committees are then informed of what they can buy. The committees then buy the approved items and are reimbursed.\n\nThe Mutual Aid Committees are not unusual in their practice of inviting honorary members. Honorary members seem to be a part of many Chinese organizations, both traditional and modern.\n\nThe position of honorary member is not based on sex; both men and women can be asked to be honorary members, although male honorary members are more numerous, reflecting the generally greater participation of men in the Mutual Aid Committees.\n\nDespite the popularity of inviting honorary members, the District Office does not encourage this practice, as it views the officers and the floor representatives as the functioning members. In addition, there is potential for committee conflicts if members cannot agree on who to invite as honorary members, and this should be avoided.\n\nThe terms \"honorary\" or \"ordinary\" refer to the distinctions made by some committees. Actually, there is very little substantive difference between president and honorary president or consultant and honorary consultant. In a few committees, it seems that the titles of honorary president or honorary consultant confer a bit more prestige, but this is by no means certain.\n\nEach registered Mutual Aid Committee may request reimbursement of its essential expenditure up to a total of $2,000 per year, computed quarterly (that is, $500 every three months). This money is provided for the MACs from a special fund from the City and New Territories Administration and may be used to pay the costs of the initial setting up of the MAC office; to purchase supplies such as blackboards and notice boards, first-aid kits, and loud speakers; and to pay the monthly bills (such as rates or the cost of electricity) for the office. Sports equipment cannot be bought with this money. Newly-established committees that are setting up their offices can ask for a one quarter's advance, so that they can use up to $1,000 in the first quarter if necessary. However, if the $2,000 yearly allotment is insufficient for the committee's needs, or if special expenditure is planned, the additional funds must be collected from the residents, or donated by the honorary members.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209424, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 81, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "59\n\nSerious measures were taken to change the whole social and political structure of the town.\n\nNOTES\n\nPreliminary note:\n\nAlthough the present paper is to a great extent based on fresh research, the following works have been of considerable use as they contain material about the government of the International Settlement:\n\nFeetham, Justice Richard: \"Report to the Shanghai Municipal Council\" 1931-1932.\n\nJohnstone, W.C.: \"The Shanghai Problem\", 1937.\n\nJones, F.C.: \"Shanghai and Tientsin\", 1940.\n\nKotenev, A.M.: \"Shanghai, its Mixed Court and Council\", 1925.\n\nMontalto de Jesus, C.A.: \"Historic Shanghai\", 1909.\n\nPort, F.L. Hawks: \"A short history of Shanghai\", 1928.\n\n1 The International Settlement at Shanghai was formed in 1863 by the amalgamation of the original British Settlement (formed in 1845, but later increased in area) with the so-called American Settlement in the Hongkew area which had grown up without formal establishment in the 1850s, and early 1860s, and which had been formally recognised by the Chinese earlier in 1863. The French Settlement (formed in 1849) always remained separate from the International Settlement. Outside the area of the foreign settlements lay the old Chinese city and suburbs: these remained under Chinese rule, and became subject to the Greater Shanghai Municipality when that was set up by the Chinese authorities in 1927.\n\n* Cf also Treaty of the Bogue, article VII, \"ground and houses, the rent of which is to be fairly and equitably arranged for, shall be set apart by the local officers in communication with the Consul.\"\n\n3\n\nPopulation figures for intermediate years are, 1,666 foreigners and 75,047 Chinese in 1870, and 6,774 foreigners and 345,276 Chinese in 1900. Of the 13,536 foreigners resident in 1910, 4,465 were British, 940 Americans and 3,361 Japanese. Of the 38,940 foreigners resident in 1935 no fewer than 20,242 were Japanese, as against 6,596 British and 2,015 Americans.\n\n+ * Text of the 1845 Land Regulations (LR) is in Shanghai Almanac 1853.\n\nIt is not too fanciful to suppose that persons willing to move to as remote a place as Shanghai in the 1840s were likely to be particularly strongly imbued with the contemporary belief in individualism, with its consequent hatred of despotism and paternalism; this almost certainly assisted in the speedy breakdown of the 1845 Land Regulations to something far more individualistic in tone.\n\n• North China Herald (NCH) 30.7.1853.\n\n* J.H. Haan: \"De opkomst van de International Settlement te Shanghai 1845-1865. Een historisch — politicologische analyse\" (\"The rise of the International Settlement at Shanghai. A historical-political analysis\"), unpublished manuscript University of Amsterdam, 1977; chapter II. Cited as Haan \"Shanghai\".\n\nCf NCH 22.7.1854; text of draft LR in NCH 30.7.1853, 27.8.1853; final version in 8.7.1854.\n\nNCH 22.4.1865.\n\n10 NCH 17.3.1866.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209461, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "96\n\nELIZABETH SINN\n\nsignificance Bowen saw in this rise of Chinese national feeling will be discussed below.\n\n* Hu Ch'uan-ch'ao, chuan 2:16b. The agent (t'an-yüan A) was responsible for intelligence reports.\n\n50 Carl Smith, \"The Emergence of a Chinese Elite\", JHKBRAS, 11 (1971) 74-115. Ho Amei is dealt with in greater detail in an untitled series Smith wrote for the South China Morning Post each Wednesday between January 1978-May 1979.\n\n* Several telegrams sent by Ho Amei to the Canton military headquarters are found in Hu Ch'uan-ch'ao, chüan 2:14b, 21b; 3:7a.\n\n1884.\n\n\"Daily Press, 23rd September, 1884. China Mail, 22nd September, \n\n\" Memorandum by the Colonial Secretary, enclosed in Bowen to Derby, 5th December, 1884, Despatch No. 399: CO129/218.\n\n** Chang Chih-tung to Tsungli Yamen, 9th October, 1884, Telegram: Chang Chih-tung, chüan 73:7a to 7b.\n\n* A special thank-you note was in fact forwarded to Marsh from the French ambassador for his protection of the French mail steamer, enclosed in F.O. to C.O., 8th December, 1884: CO129/219.\n\n65 Minute by Robert Herbert to newspaper clipping from the Standard, 16th October, 1884: CO129/218.\n\n** F.O. to C.O., 21st November, 1884: CO129/219.\n\n* Daily Press, 4th October, 1884.\n\n** Ibid.\n\n40 Marsh to Derby, 6th October, 1884, Despatch No. 342: CO129/217.\n\n70 Marsh to Derby, 3rd October, 1883, Despatch No. 250: CO129/212; Bowen to Derby, 8th March, 1884, Despatch No. 71: CO129/215; Bowen to Derby, 18th March, 1884, Despatch No. 82: ibid. Hu Ch'uan-ch'ao, chüan 7:34b-36.\n\n71 Marsh to Derby, 6th October, 1884, Despatch No. 340: CO129/217.\n\n\" Chang Chih-tung to Tsungli Yamen, 9th October, 1884, Telegram: Chang Chih-tung, chüan 73:7a-b. Chang here referred to the i-yüan Hua-jen BRA (Hospital Chinese) but from his other correspondences, we know this referred to the Tung Wah Committee.\n\n* Bowen to Derby, 5th December, 1884, Despatch No. 399: CO129/218.\n\n** Daily Press, 7th October, 1884.\n\n** Minutes of the Legislative Council Meeting of 9th October, 1884, reported in Daily Press, 10th October, 1884.\n\n** Shu-pao II. 14th October, 1884.\n\n\"China Mail, 10th October, 1884, Daily Press, 11th October, 1884, Shu Pao II, 14th October, 1884.\n\n** Bowen to Derby, 17th November, 1884, Despatch No. 381: CO129/218.\n\n* G.B. Endacott, The People and Government of Hong Kong. Lin Yu-lan Hsiang-kang shih-hua (History of Hong Kong) (Hong Kong, 1980 revised edition), pp. 92-93.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209667, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 324, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "302\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n(Arthur Grimble Return to the Islands (London, John Murray, 1965) 159-167, first printing 1937).\n\nAnother case in which firecrackers did the trick is described in some detail by Carl Crow. It concerned an advertising sign for cigarettes placed near a village outside Shanghai, credited with causing harm to its residents. In this instance, the writer found himself in a very difficult situation, between a wealthy, influential client and village feeling, and the case was only settled for good when the man lost interest in the product and turned to other lines of business. (Carl Crow, 400 Million Customers (New York, Pocket Books Inc., 1945) 99-102, first printing 1937).\n\nBut we need more examples from Hong Kong. Now that village handbooks are being collected in greater numbers, and the work of interviewing old persons and experienced senior local leaders is being done across the territory by the energetic team of researchers in the Chinese University, there is every likelihood that more local examples of this and other aspects of village rules in the settlement of disputes will come to light. This note is intended as an indication of the scope and importance of the subject.\n\nHong Kong, 1982.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nCANTON WATER PINES (GLYPTOSTROBUS PENSILIS (LAMB)) AT TAI HANG VILLAGE, NEW TERRITORIES\n\nThe rapid development of the New Territories in the last decade has posed threats not only to many sites and buildings of historical and cultural interest but also to plant and wildlife habitats of scientific significance. Considerable effort has been made by the authorities concerned to conserve the best of these, with varying degrees of success.\n\nIn the 1972 issue of this Journal, an account was given by D. C. Shen on two mature trees, Canton Water Pines, growing in the Tai Hang Village near 183 Milestone, Tai Po Road. Readers may be interested to know of conservation efforts made since then, and the present condition of the trees.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209675, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 332, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "310\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\n\"Behind Barbed Wire\" is a very self-centred account. With Leiper, one senses a greater compassion and a more generous nature. He is unstinting in his praise of the junior bank staff for their courage and determination, right down to the Number One Coolie's ability at organising refugee accommodation. There is the extraordinary loyalty of his domestic servants, one of whom died of starvation, and there is the unhappiness of the Japanese bankers with the brutal treatment meted out by the military. Not all is black or white. Also, where Jean Gittens merely notes the internees' ability to laugh at themselves, Leiper leavens the whole of his account with delightfully humorous anecdotes, which bring the story vividly alive.\n\nAbove all, it is in Leiper's account that the plight of the local population is given due recognition. Perhaps it is because of the greater variety of his experiences and the period spent outside the camp, but the broader impression of conditions in the rest of the colony and the sufferings of the ordinary people of Hong Kong lend to the book a greater balance and perspective: \"Even more distressing than these scenes of brutality was the unforgettable sight which we witnessed daily, of Chinese men, women and children lying on the pavement or huddled in doorways dying gradually of starvation, and looking at passers-by, who were powerless to assist, out of eyes from which all expression had already gone.\" Of the 2,300 interned at Stanley, 130 did not survive, but of Leiper's one hundred Chinese bank staff, fully one fifth could not be accounted for after the war. In the absence of a first-hand account from Chinese sources, Leiper has done much to improve our perspective.\n\nJ. A. MILLER\n\nPan Ling, In Search of Old Shanghai, Joint Publishing Company, Hong Kong, 1982, n.p.\n\nI wish I had known about this admirable historical guide to Shanghai when I made a research trip there last year. (In fact, I am led to believe that the present issue is an English translation of an earlier Chinese edition, although clearly, the author, whilst having the familiarity with the city which can only come through having lived there, is now a British resident.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209684, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 341, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n319\n\ndespite provision of a conversion table printed in very small characters.\n\nDespite these shortcomings, however, this is a useful handbook which will be of value in its field.\n\nP. H. HASE\n\nA Cadre School Life: Six Chapters Yang Jiang, trans. G. Barmé Joint Publishing Co. Hong Kong 1982, 91 pp.\n\nMadam Yang Jiang's \"Six Chapters on a Cadre School Life\", a book well received and translated into English, French, Japanese and other languages, is an epitome of life in the 'May 7 cadre schools' that could be found all over the country during the Cultural Revolution. This book provides food for thought for those free from any bias or prejudice, who will surely be enlightened after reading it. Like Madam Yang, I was an ordinary \"fighter\" of one of these schools. That experience should have made a greater impact on me as I had spent more time in a cadre school than she did. But for lack of literary talent and eloquence, I cannot vividly record this noteworthy episode of history in any way as well as she did.\n\nIn the Foreword he wrote for the book, Mr. Qian Zhongshu said he thought there might well have been a seventh chapter called \"Politics Chapter on Shame\". I, too, have the feeling that there is still so much more worth narrating. We, of course, cannot expect everyone to feel exactly the same because different people have different experiences and also because cadre schools were not entirely identical although they had much in common. So different people will have different things to narrate and appraisals will not be quite the same from the readers.\n\nSo far as I can remember, what struck me most was the damaging effect this period of history had on people of talent. If I were to add a chapter to this book, I would call it \"Transformation Chapter on Fei\". The word 'fei' is used mainly to denote 'waste' as in the term langfei'. It also has the meaning of 'tuition fee' as in 'xuefei'.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209685, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 342, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "320\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nThose who had worked in the Party and government organisations, as well as in cultural, educational and scientific research institutions in the late 60s and early 70s will still remember that many of these organisations were either closed down or amalgamated when the country went in for cadre schools in a big way. Quite a large number of people working in organisations that were retained, indeed the greater part of them, were sent down to cadre schools for re-education. Trains were used to transport furniture, luggage and other goods and materials to places all over China where these people now had to make their homes. In the chapter entitled \"Going Down to Cadre Schools: A Chapter on Separation\", one can find vivid descriptions of this. In the process of moving, much damage was done. Take, for instance, the School of Philosophical and Social Studies where Mr. Qian and Mdm. Yang were staying. As the school was to be handed over to some other units, it could not but take to the Yanjing paper mill all the reference material amassed and compiled over the years, only for it to be turned into paper pulp. Books and other reference materials left behind were piled up in the corridors, bitten by rats and worm-eaten. What a pathetic sight, especially to those like us who have spent most of our time studying! How sorrowful we were as we could do nothing about it!\n\nYet it was even more distressing to see time being wasted and talent trampled on. In 1970, sometime around the Spring Festival, I went to a cadre school in Liyu Zhou near Poyang Lake, where I spent 19 days visiting friends and relatives. There I saw many highly-respected teachers from the famous Beijing University doing manual labour in a wasteland where snail fever was widespread. Grey-headed scholars slept in haystacks and ate in the open. After work, they still had to attend study classes. Very often they were wakened in the middle of the night or in a violent storm to undergo military manoeuvres. They had only chaff and wild herbs to eat on New Year's Eve and were told to chant quotations from Chairman Mao. While I considered myself lucky to belong to a cadre school where living and working conditions were much better, I was, nevertheless, greatly saddened to see people of such talent being wasted. I once wrote a couplet in doggerel style for myself and fellow workers:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209694, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 351, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n329\n\nAugustus K. K. Siu and Anthony K. K. Siu, Studies on Chinese Genealogies and the History of the Hong Kong Region, Fung Chin Institute, Hong Kong, 1982.\n\nThis book consists of eleven essays on the Hong Kong region (Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories, and neighbouring areas). Four of them deal with genealogies, six principally with the history of the New Territories, and the last with boat people's songs. The central theme is that genealogies are valuable source materials for writing the history of this area, and this theme is illustrated with numerous examples.\n\nThere should be no dispute on the central theme: the question is how to put it into practice. The essay on migration into the Hong Kong region (chapter 5), despite the misleading reference in the title to all immigrant lineages as \"guest lineages\", is a useful example. In this essay, the authors list the time periods during which fifty-three surname groups first settled here from evidence recorded in their genealogies. The Tangs of Kam Tin, Lung Yeuk Tau, etc., and the P'aangs of Fan Ling came at the end of the Sung dynasty, the Lams of Shek Po Tsuen, and the Lius of Wu Kai Sha came in the Ming, and so on. The list is a useful first approximation, but obviously much more needs to be done.\n\nAnother interesting essay (chapter 4) describes ten historical “events” recorded in the genealogies. They include the marriage of the Sung princess to the ancestor of the Tangs, several famines and piratical attacks, the coastal evacuation from 1662 to 1668, the establishment of Tai Po New Market, the burial of a Chinese Christian at a Protestant cemetery on Hong Kong Island in 1854, the establishment of charity schools by philanthropist Fung Ping Shan, and flooding in Tsuen Wan in 1954. Similar \"events\" are discussed in greater detail in four other chapters (6, 8, 9 and 10), i.e., the establishment of the \"five great clans\" of the New Territories, the legend often referred to as \"letting go of the wooden goose\", the experience of the Southern Sung court in Kowloon, and the Tsuen Wan village feud of 1862 to 1864. Quite a few of these events have been discussed by other authors, notably Lo Hsiang-lin and James Hayes.\n\nThese later chapters make use of stone tablets and oral", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209787, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "24\n\nintellectual effort of redefining religious aims and methods and it is doubtful whether monks in Hong Kong have embarked on this soul-searching trip yet.\n\nThis article is about how Hong Kong has provided a unique challenge to the Buddhist sangha and a report of its response to these challenges. Hong Kong is unique in the sense that it is a rare meeting point of Chinese and Western cultures and a highly developed city where technology and science have taken hold. One can imagine that because of this Buddhism would have had to make dramatic changes. However, the case is not so simple. The changes made to Buddhism in Hong Kong should be seen in context. Many of the temples in Hong Kong have long connections with those in China. The changes in the sangha are better seen as a continuation of the adjustments to modern life which have arisen in China generally since the latter half of the nineteenth century. Holmes Welch's observation a little over twenty years ago is still basically valid:\n\nWe may say that Buddhism in Hong Kong fits into the pattern of Chinese Buddhism as a whole over the past hundred years: revitalization of faith and practice among laymen, sparked by a few really able monks, whose talents stand in all the greater contrast to those of most of their brethren.1\n\nOf course, the march of time has forced what twenty years ago were recognized merely as tendencies to become vastly more powerful currents, some of which have reached critical proportions.\n\nThe problems confronting the practical aspect of this research are many. The concept of 'self-perception' is not a frequent item within the monk's vocabulary. None of the monks I interviewed could give a satisfactory answer when the question was put to them directly. My conclusions are deductions based on the above interviews and on magazine articles.\n\n11. General situation faced by Buddhism in Hong Kong\n\nWe need a general description of the sangha in order to provide the context in which specific issues can be discussed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209819, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "56\n\nwith kuk (*) and the other with mai (*), and candles and joss-sticks placed standing in the rice. Worshipping takes place at the shrines of the earth god (t'o tei £) and kitchen god within the house. If the applicant can still afford it, he holds a feast for friends and relatives who often bring presents of mirrors and furniture.\n\n12. Some Fung Shui (¥) Problems\n\n(a) Certain localities, particularly hills, are sometimes regarded as throwing out good or bad influences, according to the animal which the locality represents. In the same manner, strong objections are frequently raised to the opening of windows in a house that faces some other house or temple. The window represents the open mouth of a tiger ready to swallow up the occupants of the building facing it. A lamp flashing in the direction of a house is equally obnoxious.\n\n(b) Antidotes to these evil rays or influence are often difficult to apply. One method is for the aggrieved householders to put up a paat kwa (^) or eight-sided diagram on the outside of their house. Alternatively, a mirror sometimes will suffice to reflect the evil rays. A third method is to erect some effective barrier in between, such as trees or bamboos, with a temporary wall until the trees have attained sufficient height and bushiness to be an effective screen.\n\n(c) These objections are for the most part confined to Cantonese rather than Hakka (). However, because of their greater belief in animism, Hakka (*) are the more concerned with fung shui (¥) trees and rocks, damage to which they will strenuously oppose.\n\n13. Oaths\n\n(a) Before the lease of the New Territories to the Crown in 1898 and the coming of British law, the question of which party to a dispute was telling the truth was customarily settled by a form of trial by ordeal in a temple. Both parties would attend at a mutually agreed temple (miu, never a clan temple or Tsz t'ong) with witnesses and all interested villagers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209820, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "57\n\nEach party would then pray to the temple god affirming the truth of his statements in the dispute and inviting the god to do the supplicant an injury if he were not in fact telling the truth. Each party in turn would then attempt to strike off the head of a live cock (colour unimportant) with a single stroke of a chopper. If the head were severed cleanly, the party thereby proved his case. An incomplete severance would show the hollowness of the party's statements, probably because guilty knowledge caused his hand to shake.\n\n(b) In practice, it was seldom that both parties were required to chop off the cock's head. Usually the guilty party would feel himself unable to invite the god's wrath in the preliminary worshipping and would back out. This implied a perhaps greater belief in the omnipotence of the gods than is apparent nowadays when the modern age and Christianity have taken some of the edge off ancient traditions.\n\n(c) The custom is now quite rare, although a case occurred in Tai Po in 1948, under the auspices of the then District Officer.\n\n14. Money Loan Associations\n\n(a) Debt disputes frequently arise as a result of money loan associations. Without a clear idea of their workings, it is impossible to understand the inevitable ramifications of each case.\n\n(b) Such associations are normally formed by groups of persons in close daily contact with each other so as to create mutual trust and confidence. Examples are employees or clerks of a shop or even Government servants in the same office. The object of the association is to pool the financial resources of the members, with the gambling prospect of each member at some stage being able to use these resources for his own benefit. Each member will eventually get back roughly the same amount of money as he put into the association.\n\n(c) There are of course variations but generally the procedure is for a number of persons to club together for a set period which corresponds to the number of persons (e.g., 10 persons for 10 months). The period can begin at any time and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209823, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "60\n\n(f) Finally, in entering business or commerce, a man will frequently assume yet another name, “pit tsz” (筆子), for purposes of business only.\n\n(g) Apart from the milk name, proper name and school name, a girl will at marriage assume her husband's clan name in front of her own, e.g. HO Fung Ling (何鳳玲), on marrying TANG Man Lin (鄧文連), becomes TANG HO Fung Ling (鄧何鳳玲).\n\n(h) The reluctance of married women to reveal their full maiden name often leads them to leave off their final name and instead to add the suffix \"shi” (氏).\n\nNOTES\n\n1 The notes were later amended and in this amended form were put on a file (Ref1/477/54) which is now in the Public Records Office. The notes as given here represent the original form, with footnotes, introduction and minor amendments by the author (Hon. Ed.).\n\n* Wills, of whatever sort, were, whatever the legal position, very rare among New Territories villagers. I remember only one, of a wealthy Cantonese landowner.\n\n* I met such a case in Tai Po where the wife, fortunately, did not contest the husband's claim that she was not a virgin.\n\n* I must have come across up to half a dozen cases of sam p'o tsai, including two or three disputes where the girl refused to marry her intended groom. The groom's family did not attempt to force marriage, but were concerned about a formal separation. The groom's family had of course for some time received the free use of the girl's services as a household worker, and so could not validly demand compensation from the girl's natural parents. A sam p'o tsai is quite different to a mui tsai who was to all intents and purposes a slave girl. (Mui tsai were banned in Hong Kong before World War II.)\n\n* Up till the 1950's, huet chong graves were normally left untouched for 5 years, this being the period needed for bodies to decompose completely. But, from the 1950's onwards, bodies took longer to decompose, and 7 years is now the standard time. I know this, because from 1958-60 I was in the Urban Services Department in charge of disposal of the dead. I was also in the Urban Services Department from 1968-71, when again I was connected with this aspect. In those days, the coffin section at Wo Hop Shek cemetery used to be cleared every 5 years, but there were so many unfit graves that this period was extended to 7 years. The need for the longer period arose apparently from the wider use of antibiotics and other drugs which seem to have the effect of preserving bodies and which were then coming into much greater use.\n\nSee in general on Burial Customs the author's Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong, journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 1, 1960, pp 115-124.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209922, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "159\n\nof a large corporation or the owner-manager of a smaller firm. The immediate financial rewards of both were more or less the same. Which option would you choose?\n\nAs Table 8 indicates, nearly two-thirds of those who indicated a preference chose to become owners.\n\nThis pattern of choice might be considered as natural if all of the respondents were owners themselves. It is logical to assume that a process of selective recruitment to the entrepreneurial role is at work, i.e., individuals who have the early ambition to be their own boss will try harder and thus have a greater chance to attain that goal. Fortunately, among my sample there were persons who derived their income mainly from salary and not profit. I shall call these non-proprietary directors as distinct from owner-directors. By non-proprietary I mean that these directors had been appointed directors before they held any company shares in their name, and that any shares they might possess subsequently were less than the average holding of individual shareholders. Eleven of the respondents, or a quarter of the sample, fell within this category. With such a distinction, we can pursue the question of selective recruitment. Did non-proprietary directors tend to favour salaried employment while owner-directors would choose to be self-employed? Table 9 demonstrates that this was not the case. There is no significant correlation between the employment status of the respondent and his preference for independent ownership.\n\nTable 8: Hong Kong Cotton Spinners' Preferences for Employment Status\n\n \n Choice\n Number\n Percentage\n \n \n Owner-manager\n 21\n 62\n \n \n Senior executive\n 11\n 32\n \n \n No preference\n 2\n 6\n \n \n No answer\n 6\n \n \n \n TOTAL\n 40\n 100\n \n\nSource: Interviews, 1978.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209986, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "223\n\nor the artisan. And even The Water Margin 水滸傳, an omnibus of tales about a large band of outlaws, tells us next to nothing about the life of ordinary men and women. drama, poetry and documentary writings.\n\nSo it was, also, with\n\nEarly travellers, missionaries, traders and diplomats from other cultures were not tied in the same way to one social class in China. They do show in many cases a marked preference for chronicling the deeds and circumstances of the elite, but in their writings they roam over all aspects of Chinese life because they could take no knowledge on the part of their readers for granted. By the time that Chinese scholars and Western sociologists came to be interested in popular culture and the workings of everyday life. China was in the throes of modernisation and encroaching foreign influences, and the old accounts of China as seen through the observant and frequently bigoted eyes of early Western writers came into their own again. Here lay a mass of material on what life was like before the -isms and schisms of the twentieth century began to warp it in strange ways.\n\nnow.\n\nWhat has been happening in recent years has been a dovetailing of the study of old China with the study of China We can very well use scientific analysis to show how contemporary people behave, but we cannot necessarily use it to discover why they hold a particular set of beliefs and prejudices. Here the study of Chinese history and traditional culture can help us to achieve an understanding. On the other hand we have no good information on how the common people of imperial China behaved, but we can track back from what we know of how contemporary people behave to gain a greater understanding of what those earlier times must have been like. One China did not cease in 1911 or 1949 and another different China take its place: there is a meaningful continuity over time. Here lies the justification for the Ancestral Images approach, and I do not find it surprising that at the time of writing this a Chinese translation of the books is about to go to press why shouldn't the Chinese want to explore the cultural links with their past, even if through the dim eyes of a foreign observer?\n\nHow good, then is this list of books I have quoted from? Is it a representative sample of what is available? Are all the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210471, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "59\n\nThem daily to their fishing grounds brought them back in the evenings as often as not to the anchorage at Sai Kung, where they could sell their fish alive immediately to the buyers in the street market or to dealers, or have it collected fresh first thing in the morning at the F.M.O. depot, buying bait from the incoming purse-seiners at the same time before setting out to sea again. At times too, particularly before mechanisation, they found it wise to choose an evening anchorage nearer their next day's fishing grounds than Kau Sai or even Sai Kung, in which case they would probably sell their fish to fish collecting junks and not return to port at all for several days as one of them put it \"until the rice runs out\". The less frequent presence of the small liners in Kau Sai was reflected in the greater timidity of liner children when they did come ashore there to play.\n\nBecause the main fishing seasons for purse-seiners and long-liners did not coincide, there was a certain alternation in the intensity of the spatial rhythms of occupational movement just described, but in other respects the programme of seasonal and annual changes affected all the fishermen in rather similar ways. The threat of a typhoon, for example, would bring about an immediate transformation in the spatial distribution of all the local junks as they converged upon Sai Kung or Yim Tin Tsai. At such times Kau Sai, like the other neighbouring anchorages, would be empty of boats for probably several days.\n\nContrariwise, there was one occasion in the annual cycle of ritual events when almost all the local craft met in Kau Sai. During the Hung Shing Festival in the 2nd month, the bay might contain four hundred or more junks calling in from all the neighbouring anchorages and Shaukiwan, and even (though rarely) from as far afield as Aberdeen, Cheung Chau or Castle Peak. During this period, as at New Year, all who considered themselves \"real\" Kau Sai people stayed at their moorings. The pattern of movement at this festival was balanced, so to speak, by others elsewhere in the locality - notably that at Lung Shuen Wan in the 3rd month and Pak Sha Wan in the 6th - to which Kau Sai boats went regularly. Once there, they usually anchored in a block together, recognised agnatic kin side-by-side as at home. During these periods, they continued to go out fishing, but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210521, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 128, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "109\n\nOne of these couples had their baby daughter aged 2 and the man's widowed mother with them as well. They and one other of the 3 married couples employed in this way (also on the same boat) were affinally related to the boat's master. The third pair of married employees, on another boat, was not so related.\n\nAlthough it was unusual to find boat dwellers, even fokis, who had originated on the land like Leung Shui Hei, his history was by no means unique. My notes contain a number of other similar cases from other centres of the Boat People, and a large number of cases also of adoption from land with water families. This whole topic, crucial, obviously, to an understanding of the actual relationship between the Boat People and the Chinese population on land, is discussed at greater length below, and elsewhere (Ward 1965, and forthcoming). The more usual backgrounds from which the Kau Sai fokis came were two. First, there were the younger sons of fishermen whose business was not of a kind or scale to require the employment of a complete extended family crew. All the Kau Sai small long-liners were cases in point, as were most of the other small liners, hand-liners, trappers, gill-netters and so on of the inshore waters all around Hong Kong. Such families were not necessarily impoverished, though many were not far from the subsistence level and some were very poor indeed. A small long-liner could, however, run a prosperous business without needing to expand his crew. In such cases, the fact that a younger son or brother was doing a spell of work as a foki did not necessarily imply that he or his family were poverty stricken: he could be simply an absentee member of a successful working unit whose organisers found it more profitable to have him earning a wage outside than being underemployed at home. Secondly, of course, fokis did also come from the ranks of the unsuccessful of all kinds, and not only from boats with small crews, but also from purse-seiners and sometimes trawlers and others whose business in prosperity not only required more workers than even the largest extended families could provide but could also support them all. Fishing being a chancy business and the South China Sea treacherous, sudden reverses of fortune were always possible, and there were not a few stories of the one time junks' masters who had had to pay off their fokis, sell their junks, dismiss their sons with their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210548, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "136\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\nThere is no particular reason why these competing points of view should be regarded as mutually exclusive, and this should be kept in mind when one turns to the Roman material. Here our best source is undoubtedly Cicero, for he defines how one acquires responsibility for the dead with great precision. Once again, the critical passage is to be found in the essay On the Laws (2.48):\n\nClearly our laws on this subject derive from the authority of the pontiffs, who imposed the performance of the rites on those to whom the property passes so that the memory of his ascendants may not perish on the death of the father of the family. After this single rule was laid down, itself quite adequate for an understanding of the proper procedure, innumerable others have come into existence and filled the books of the jurists. For they attempt to fix with exactness the persons who are obligated to perform the rites. This responsibility is altogether just in the case of the natural heirs, for there is no one who more truly takes the place of the dead. Next comes the person who, either by a death-bed gift or a will, receives as much of the estate as all the natural heirs combined... In the third place, if there is no heir, the man who acquires by possession the ownership of the greater part of the property that was in the possession of the deceased at the moment of his demise is bound by the obligation. In the fourth place, if no one acquires any of the property of the deceased, then the obligation falls upon that one of the creditors who retains most of the estate.\n\nThe cult of the dead in late republican Rome, then, seems to be governed by the same principles that Ahern uncovered in Ch'i-nan: the natural heirs have an obvious duty, but only so long as they receive at least half of their father's property. It is the latter that is the crucial element in both communities; Cicero's remark that a creditor might in the end legally be required to continue the cult of his debtor's ascendants, for example, is strongly reminiscent of Ahern's claim that one could contract an obligation to care for the deceased simply by using his property. The lack of uniformly defined obligations at the village level even on the relatively small island of Taiwan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210557, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "145\n\n5 For an introduction to the religious life of the empire during the Principate, see J. Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire (London, 1970), together with the criticisms of this work advanced in the review of M.J. Boyd, JRS, 62 (1972), 197-198; or the more synthetic effort of R. MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven, 1981).\n\n* For the date of composition, see G. Highet, Juvenal the Satirist (Oxford, 1954), 12-13. Isis was one of the redemptive oriental divinities; standard treatments include L. Vidman, Isis und Sarapis bei den Griechen und Römern (Berlin, 1970); R.E. Witt, Isis in the Graeco-Roman World (London, 1971); and F. Dunand, Le culte d'Isis dans le bassin oriental de la Méditerranée, 3 vols. (Leiden, 1973). As the title itself suggests, S.K. Heyob, The Cult of Isis among Women in the Graeco-Roman World (Leiden, 1975), focuses on the characteristics of Isis that made her attractive to women in the classical world, and on their role in her cult. The last two items are vols. 26 and 51 respectively in a general series edited by M.J. Vermaseren, Etudes préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain (Leiden, 1961-), which contains several more specialized monographs on Isis, and on which I shall have more to say below. Other salvationist deities worthy of note include Mithras and Cybele. The classic study of the Mithraic cult is that of F. Cumont, Les mystères de Mithra, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1902); on Cybele, cf. H. Graillot, Le culte de Cybèle, mère des dieux, à Rome et dans l'empire (Paris, 1912); and M.J. Vermaseren, Attis and Cybele: the Myth and the Cult, trans. A.M.H. Lemmers (London, 1977).\n\n7 The literature on the persecution at Lyons, as on the persecution of Christians in general, is predictably vast. One may profitably begin with S.R. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford, 1965), of which pp. 1-30 are devoted to the events at Lyons.\n\n8 The persecution at Lyons was preceded by a ban on Christians entering private homes, the public baths, or the forum (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 5.1.5-6) - a useful reminder that people of very different beliefs routinely mingled in public and private. The tensions that could arise between a Christian and his or her pagan spouse were addressed by Paul circa A.D. 56 (1 Cor. 7: 12-16); we can follow them in greater detail in some of the aristocratic households of the fourth century; cf. A. Chastagnol, “Le sénateur Volusien et la conversion d'une famille de l'aristocratie Romaine au bas-empire”, REA, 58 (1956), 241-253; and P.R.L. Brown, \"Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy”, JRS, 51 (1961), 1-11. But Christianity itself was not a monolith; the decision to embrace the ascetic life could generate strong opposition from more orthodox Christian family members, as has been demonstrated by A. Yarbrough, “The Christianization of Rome: the Example of Roman Women\", Ch. Hist., 45 (1976), 149-165.\n\n9 One frequently encounters the argument, for example, that the ecstatic cult of Dionysus was especially attractive to women because it offered an outlet for the pent-up frustration and anger that resulted from their extremely low social status; cf. recently R. Kraemer, \"Ecstasy and Possession: the Attraction of Women to the Cult of Dionysus”, HThR, 72 (1979), 55-80; and E.C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus. Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens (New York, 1985), 360 et passim.\n\n10 The extraordinary cultural diversity of the empire is brought out well in the brief survey of F. Millar (ed.), The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours (London, 1967).\n\nHence the resort to notional dates, as in Ogilvie (1969), who admits at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210634, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 241, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "Dear Sir,\n\nI have examined the fragment of ch. 494 of the Ta pan-jo po-lo-mi-to ching (Maha-prajna-paramita sutra) which you forwarded to Mr. Gardner on behalf of Mr. Nixon. It is undoubtedly a genuine document from the Tunhuang monastic library. I was extremely fortunate that Mr. Dzo Ching-ch'uan, who has worked on these manuscripts in Paris, came to London the other day, and was kind enough to give a second opinion. He considers that it is either 8th or 9th century, but certainly no later. The top and bottom have been trimmed, but it is impossible to say whether in modern times or not. Some of our documents were trimmed before the 10th century.\n\nThe Tibetan document we consider to be later, from the type of paper, but we are not able to comment on the text. I have taken the roll personally to the India Office Library, and they will write separately.\n\nThe fundamental work on paper, calligraphic style, dating sequences, etc., has yet to be done. Among the Tunhuang documents scattered throughout the world there are several hundred of the same title as the Chinese fragment. This one is average to good, with a greater variation of characters in the column than is usual.\n\nYours Sincerely,\n\nsgd.\n\n(E.D. Grinstead)\n\nAssistant Keeper\n\nThe scroll is described in our catalogue as follows:\n\n大般若經\n\n大般若波羅蜜多經卷第四百九十四第三分善現品 第三之十三三藏法師玄奘奉詔譯\n\n1\n\n44×24公分 卷軸 敦煌殘卷共 26 行行17字\n\nThe text of the scroll is reproduced in Plate 14.\n\nJames Hayes", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210773, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "107\n\ncertain conditions official policy may have tended to discourage it and local prejudice inhibited it (particularly since the prohibitions of minority languages and costumes during the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in violent confrontations between members of the same ethnic groups, as had occurred earlier during the 1930's), an aspiration to the Han economic condition and a desire for full participation in the workings of the Chinese state have proved constant features of minority history, which continue despite official policies which would seem to encourage localism, perhaps because Sinicisation is an inevitable process which neither official policies nor localism can effectively contain. At the same time and to present again the opposite picture, I was reassured by Miao cadres as to my fears for their loss of culture: ‘these things are very difficult to lose', they maintained, referring to their fengsu, or customs.\n\nGreater-group formation\n\nA second major trend evident in the development of the national minorities since Liberation has been the tendency towards greater-group formation and the fusion, rather than the fission, of smaller ethnic and cultural groups. This again has resulted partly from official policies of designating and classifying certain selected ethnic national minority groups, but owes more perhaps to the need to achieve some form of political consolidation in the face of greater centralisation of authority under the state after 1949. The classification of ethnic groups has long been a problem for Chinese ethnographers. Influenced by the example of Soviet ethnographers (Lemoine 1986), Chinese ethnographers have adopted the criteria of a common language, an area of habitation, a unique set of customs, attitudes and beliefs, and a traditional means of livelihood, as a means of classifying minzu, or national minorities, which as Hsieh (1986) points out, itself represents a uniquely different concept to the Western concepts of either ‘nationality' or ‘ethnic group'. In a seminal article written in 1980, Fei Hsiao-Tung outlined some of the problems relating to the classification of national minorities. Among the problematic instances he described were cases where opinions differed within a single national minority as to whether it was an autonomous ethnic group or part of another, or where class differences led to their refusal to identify", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210919, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 270, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "nese affairs and opinion in Hongkong, Ho A-mei was eminently more qualified to represent the Chinese, but other factors handi-capped him as a candidate for a seat on the Legislative Council.\n\nWHEN A BARRISTER GAMBLES ON ELOQUENCE\n\nThe deputation of prominent Chinese which waited on the Acting Governor in January 1883 had several important matters to present to him. These were the increase in gambling and illegal brothels and the congestion and nuisance created by hawkers.\n\nDr. Ho Kai, who had recently returned to Hongkong after completing his studies abroad, was the spokesman for the group. He had brought with him a reputation as a brilliant and learned man. His training as a barrister provided the skill to set forth problems in an eloquent and persuasive fashion.\n\nAs to eloquence, Dr. Ho Kai brilliantly displayed it in his maiden speech as a public figure in Hongkong. But as for adequately presenting the views of the Chinese community, some felt he had dismally failed. Ho A-mei was one of his severest critics.\n\nNot long before the deputation made its formal visit, a petition bearing the chops and signatures of more than 1,000 Chinese shops, hongs and individuals had been submitted to the Registrar-General for transmission to the Governor. This widely signed petition dealt with the increase in gambling and was an appeal for action by Government to suppress the evil.\n\nThe greater part of Dr. Ho Kai's speech dealt with this problem. In his remarks he set forth the manner gambling was carried on in Hongkong.\n\nThere were three popular ways to gamble, tse-fa, pak-kop piu (white pigeon ticket) and fan-tan. The first two are a form of lottery. In 1883 all of these were controlled by a number of gambling societies.\n\nOne of the difficulties in the suppression of the activities of these societies was the wording of the Gambling Ordinance. It\n\nPage 270\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211005, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "42\n\nNOTES\n\nAnthony K.K. Siu, \"The Kowloon Walled City”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, (hereafter, JHKBRAS) vol 20 (1980) 139-140; his Chiu-lung ch'eng shih lun-chi ” (“Studies on the Kowloon Walled City\") (Hong Kong: Hin Chiu Institute, 1987) p. 27. It was called miserable by the Rev. Krone in his “A Notice of the Sanon District” China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Transactions 6 (1859) 71-105, reprinted in the JHKBRAS 7 (1967) 104-137, 132.\n\n2 Chou-pan i-wu shih-mo (The complete account of the management of barbarian affairs) 260 ch'uan (Photographic copy of original compilation, Hong Kong, 1964), ch'uan 70: 18b-19b.\n\nThe hsun-chien originally administered 496 villages in the county; with the cession of Hong Kong Island, 5 were taken out of his hands, and in 1860, another 12 were lost with the cession of the Kowloon Peninsula. Thus by 1898, he was only responsible for 479. See Siu, Chiu-lung ch'eng, pp. 16-20.\n\n3 ibid., p. 28.\n\n4 Chou-pan i-wu shih-mo, ch'uan 76: 3a-4a.\n\n5 J.H.S. Lockhart, [Report on the New Territory], enclosed in Lockhart to Chamberlain, October 8, 1898 in Great Britain. Colonial Office. Original Correspondence (Series 129) (hereafter CO129)/289; p. 74. According to a later account, however, the wall was about 23 English feet high, and the width at the top between approximately 5.8 feet and 11.75 feet. See Chiang-shan ku-jen LA, “Hsiang-kang hsin-chieh feng-t'u ming-sheng ta-kuan\" (A panorama of local customs and famous places in Hong Kong and the New Territories) part 104. These articles appeared in the Hua-chiao jih-pao between 1935-36, and are collected in an album deposited at the University of Hong Kong Library. Based on observations, these articles are an important source of geographical and historical information of places in the territory. However, it seems that Lockhart, who had been commissioned to reconnoitre the newly leased territory, might have gone to greater lengths to obtain accurate measurements.\n\n6 Another detailed observation of the wall and guard houses was made by Walter Schofield in 1928, and his notes are reproduced in JHKBRAS 9 (1969) 154–156.\n\n7 Chiang-shan ku-jen, “feng-t'u”, part 104.\n\n8 Lockhart, p. 75.\n\n9 Lockhart, p. 75.\n\n10 Chiang-shan ku-jen, “feng-t'u”, parts 109-110.\n\n11 See the inscription recorded in David Faure, Bernard Luk and Alice Ng Lun Ngai-ha ed. Hsiang-kang pei-ming hui-pien (Historical inscriptions of Hong Kong) 3 volumes. (Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1986) vol. 1, p. 101,\n\nJames Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1977 (Hamden, Connecticut, 1977) pp. 167-168. The building was partially demolished in the early 1980s, and a high-rise apartment building was built over it. At the moment (1988), the frame of the entrance with the original couplet is still in place, and an altar, said to be from the school, still stands on the ground floor.\n\n12 Hsun-huan jih-pao June 13, 1883.\n\n13 Hayes, p. 168; Chiang-shan ku-jen, \"feng-t'u”, part 107.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211014, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "more down-to-earth \"lower valuations\" of the situation was that genuine friendship between Chinese and Europeans as equals was at the time so rare as to be not worth exemplifying. The same implicit message is conveyed by the deference and outwardly very respectful tone of several of his more formal examples of business letters. On the other hand, his suggestion that readers test the usefulness of the book by picking out any one English word and asking a non-English-speaking Chinese person to read the adjoining Chinese characters and produce the sound required implies quite a modern, empirical attitude towards the question of language and the assumption by Mok Man Cheung of a type of independent, verifiable authority. A.W. Brewin's short and inelegant note, included as an endorsement of the book and quoted at the outset of this article, intimates that the Registrar General had taken the author at his word and conducted a number of these experiments personally.\n\nThe reprint, in the “Introduction” to a second edition of English Made Easy, of the South China Morning Post's review of Mok Man Cheung's work, besides explaining his \"system\" in greater detail, also identifies the book's readership more specifically.\n\nThis work is self-teaching, and it is believed that it will supply a want which has long been felt by the following classes of the Chinese and Chinese who are unacquainted with the sounds of English words:- 1. Country youths who have acquired [sic] a fair Chinese education, but find it inconvenient for them to come from their country homes to learn English. 2. Chinese literates, scholars and officials who are desirous of picking up a few words of simple English to enable them to hold short conversations with Englishmen; 3. Servants in the employ of Europeans who are too old to go to school or unable to attend school for want of means and time.\n\nOne cannot know now the extent to which Mok Man Cheung himself contributed towards this analysis. It is, however, consistent...\n\nPage 51", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211035, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "71\n\n1901 (see below).\n\n36\n\nBrewin, who was promoted to Registrar General in 1901, had also served briefly, from 1897 to 1901, as Inspector of Schools in succession to E.J. Eitel. His endorsement was, therefore, particularly valuable. He had been appointed, together with his successor as Inspector of Schools, E.A. Irving, and the Chinese member of the Legislative Council, Ho Kai, to the 1901-1902 Education Committee, the report of which contains blatant calls for the separate educational treatment of the different races and a clear recommendation, compatible with the extremes of colonialistic paternalism, that, as far as Chinese education was concerned, the Government should concentrate its efforts and finances on the education, in English, of the few who could be regarded as potential leaders. Interestingly, the Secretary of State for the Colonies at this time, Joseph Chamberlain, totally rejected this recommendation (Chamberlain to Sir Henry Blake, Governor of Hong Kong, 12th September, 1902, in CO129/311, p. 481).\n\n\"For certain individuals, this explanation is something of a euphemism since the “medical and sanitary precautions\" involved burning down their homes.\n\nThe Plague first broke out in Hong Kong in the Spring of 1894. The death rate for the first five or six months was over 2,500, and, though, it was the Chinese population which was most affected, the Europeans were not untouched. Lady Robinson, the wife of the Governor of Hong Kong, was, for example, a victim. Dr. E.J. Eitel, the Inspector of Schools, provided details of the rumours circulating among the less educated Chinese, and their effects, in a memorandum to the Colonial Secretary on 22nd May 1894. Eitel wrote to report and explain \"the panic which has suddenly decimated the attendance in the local Chinese Schools\" and noted that the rumours began to spread in districts affected by the Plague on Sunday, 20th May and reached other districts the next day. The principal rumours were (a) that \"the Government intended to select a few young Children from each School to subject them to a surgical incision of the liver in order to obtain bile, this being the only known remedy for curing the plague”; and, (b) that \"every School would be visited by officers who would examine every child and send to the \"Hygeia\" anyone having the least boil or pimple on its body\". Eitel speculated about the origin of the panic, attributing it to \"the malicious distortion of the native medical fraternity\" and concluded: “I do not think anything very effectual can be done to remove the suggestions of native malice to native ignorance and suspiciousness. Distrust of the Government is still rampant among the lower classes of Chinese. Education will remove it in time. (Memorandum No. 38 of 22nd May, 1894, by Dr. E.J. Eitel, Inspector of Schools; in CO129/263, p. 190-193). 39 In Arnold Wright (ed.), Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and the Other Treaty Ports of China: Their History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources (London: Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Company, Ltd., 1908), p. 182, for example, Mok Tso Chun, “a native of the Heungshan district\" and formerly one of the directors of the Tung Wah Hospital, is described as the Chief Compradore of Butterfield and Swire. In the Anglo-Chinese Commercial Directory of circa 1915 (Chief Editor, Jan George Chance), a Mok Jao Chuen, clearly the same person as Mok Tso Chun, appears as Compradore for Butterfield and Swire, while a Choi Kung Po and a Mok Kon Sang appear as Assistant Compradores. Mok Man Cheung acted as witness to the will of Mok Tso [or Jao] Chun and the will, itself, makes it clear that Mok Kon Sang was Mok Tso Chun's eldest son. It was certainly not unusual for Compradores at this time to find positions for younger relatives.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211101, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "137\n\npublic meetings, fomenting agitations in regard to liberty of the subject and such things as the average Chinaman will never be able to discuss with safe familiarity for several generations to come.\n\nHe admitted there might be exceptions to his sweeping indictment. “A few there are among the Chinese who are quite at home in these essentially Western matters; but very few indeed, and to their credit be it said they have discretion enough to see that their day is far off. These master-minds of regenerate China had no share in the ludicrous proceedings at the Tung Wah on Sunday.\" Did he specifically have in mind Dr. Ho Kai?\n\nAs for those who did \"speechify\" at the meeting, in the editor's opinion, they had made fools of themselves.\n\nThe paper called for stern action against the two main speakers. It took particular exception to the remark made by Ho A-mei that any legislation or Government action that is directed against the Chinese exclusively should be resisted. It suggested that “if the Government fails to make an example of a man who publicly promulgates this sweeping doctrine, then we shall consider that the Government fails in its duty. A maxim like that must be taken seriously and crushed forever.\" The writer sees in the words of Ho A-mei the seeds of revolt and the breakdown of British authority.\n\nIn his remarks, Ho A-mei had called for more police vigilance. It was not the light and pass regulations that were needed to prevent criminal activity, but more detection and prevention by the police. The China Mail rose to the defence of the law-enforcers and charged A-mei with \"laying calumnies against the police.\" In fact, according to the editor, \"there are mis-statements enough in his speech to brand him forever as a man not fit to be allowed to speak in public.”\n\nAnd as for Mr. Ho Tung, his speech \"should remove him from the roster of Justices of the Peace.\" The writer saw him as a dangerous rabble-rouser who should be checked before he caused greater damage to British authority. “Apart from the absurdities in which he wallowed, he gave utterance to sentiments which can", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211228, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 289, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "264\n\nIn the course of interviewing systemically within the district and going to all the festivals, and also doing what we call 'spot interviews', we began to discover that villagers had in their possession a lot of books. Our first big find in this area was a box in the house of a Taoist priest who kindly and generously allowed us to photocopy all the books in it. These were handwritten, and some of them were not even used in his time. We also found quite a few in Shatin, and then all sorts of other things turned up. At the moment, what we call the \"Historical Literature of the New Territories\" runs into 30,000 photocopied sheets, and more material is coming in all the time. Photocopies of these papers have been made for various libraries, here and abroad, in view of their historical importance. I should also mention a project on collecting folk songs in the New Territories, which is being sponsored by the Hong Kong Museum of History.\n\nIn hindsight, the organisation we had was rather too simple. Working in the way we did, we in fact needed a much greater amount of institutional support than we actually had. The problem is, you need a certain amount of continuity. You see, strangely enough, money is not the biggest issue. Continuity is needed to build up and sustain your contacts. People also need a place to work in, which we never really had. It has got to the stage where if somebody really wants to go on working along these lines, collecting interview materials and documents, he has to give up all his writing, which is quite impossible. On the other hand, the price you pay for writing without continuing to collect is that a lot of the material will be lost. Old people will simply not be around for so long, and the books will be thrown away before they are collected. Unfortunately, so far no institution has come forward to support a project of this sort. The people who are involved are working in their personal capacities and doing whatever they can. But because we have not got a better organisation, more will be lost than need be the case.\n\nPatrick Hase\n\nWell I'll also start by saying how I started in this field. Like other people now keenly interested in village life in Hong Kong, I was not initially interested in the subject. Then I became District", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211234, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 295, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "270\n\nWell, I found that this was just not so in Tsuen Wan. Practically all the lineages there had had a genealogy at one time, and about two-thirds of them still have. Moreover, if you consult the 1905 Block Crown Leases for land in Tsuen Wan, and look at the descriptions of house lots in the villages of the sub-district, you will get the impression that there were not any ancestral halls in places like Tsuen Wan. This again turned out to be quite wrong. Going through the villages, old people would say \"This is our ancestral hall\" or more often \"That was the site of our ancestral hall”. Even a small clan with, say, only 5 or 10 houses at the turn of the century had its own ancestral hall. Also, there were old schoolrooms and other institutions which indicated that the infrastructure of local village society was greater than the written records would show.\n\nMy third point and I am just over my time concerns another clue to the nature of local society. I had done collecting in \"Town\", i.e. Hong Kong's central areas, at second-hand bookshops, stalls and so on and I had found quite a lot of printed guides to letter writing, social etiquette, and how to carry out a wide range of family, village and business affairs. I thought \"Surely these must have existed in the villages too, and it would be interesting to find if they have the printed versions or the manuscript versions of them, or both\". To cut a long story short, there were such guides to be found in the Tsuen Wan villages. They were practically all of the hand-written type, copied no doubt from generation to generation. They were often kept by the school teachers, and (I was told) dictated to promising pupils or passed on to them. Some elders also possessed them.\n\nSo these were the sort of things I found in Tsuen Wan over my seven year stay. The only other thing worth noting in this connection is that we were in the business of trying to preserve a few old villages, and that in fact we managed to preserve two. One of them, Sam Tung Uk, was located in the middle of Tsuen Wan, right next to the new Mass Transit Railway. Another was up in the hills at a place called Yuen Tun where the main block has been preserved. It is inside the Civil Aid Services camp site, and is a magnificent building to go and look at. I say that with enthusiasm. It is a perfectly ordinary village building, but is a fine example of its kind. These initiatives came mainly from a few officials.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211296, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "in Rev. Carl Smith's articles reprinted in the 1986 Journal. His accounts of 19th century Cantonese entrepreneurs like Ho A-mei show that Chinese energy and enterprise was fuelled and sustained by the opportunities opened by colonial Hong Kong, and remind us that what we see and marvel at today has also happened yesterday.\n\nWe have another publication nearing completion. This is the book entitled The Turning of the Tide, Religion in China Today which is a collection of papers by authors with first-hand knowledge of the subject and edited by one of our members, Professor Julian Pas of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.\n\nLibrary\n\nMembers will have noted the greater expenditure on our library in the year's accounts. We are continuing the RAS tradition of building up a fine reference library of books on China. At a time when such books are in increasingly short supply, as reflected in booksellers' rising prices, the financial value of our collection grows from year to year.\n\nSince 1985, the Library has been kept at the Kowloon Central Library, as part of the reference collection there. The advantage of housing it in a public library is that more people can use it, but the disadvantage from our members' viewpoint is that most of them live on Hong Kong Island. Their use of the RAS Collection is undoubtedly limited thereby, especially as the Kowloon Central Library is not located on or near an MTR station. I have therefore discussed with the Chief Librarian, Urban Council Libraries, the possibility of moving it back to the Island when an opportunity occurs. Mrs. Luk tells me that this can be done when the City Hall's Hong Kong Central Library is replaced on the same or another site in the 1990s, and that she is willing to do so at that time. I have written to her subsequently to formalize this request.\n\nAn allied problem is the availability of the collection. Under normal library policies, access to the stacks (the shelves where the books are kept) is very limited. This is the case at Kowloon Central Library, where books other than ours are kept in the same section. On the other hand, the books are ours, and our members should have better access to them, instead of being confined to the catalogue and making a requisition. Mrs.\n\nXi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211300, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 16, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "Conclusion\n\nLest you might think otherwise, this report is not intended to be that of a mutual admiration society! True, we have succeeded in doing more for our ever-growing number of members, but there is still much to do to make the Society really measure up to the needs of the membership in the context of present-day Hong Kong, and to make more of an impact on the community than we have to date. Ways to do this were spelled out in our Symposium Report, and I shall mention a few of them here.\n\nNow that we are stronger in our organization and backup services, we need to strengthen our links with other local societies. This is the task of the External Links Committee, and they have already begun their work. Greater mutual knowledge and unity will not only increase benefits to members through having more joint functions, it will also protect us and enable us to defend our common interests at need. Such a need was perceived a few months ago, as I have noted above. On a more positive note, the opportunities for supporting the public interest can be better utilized with stronger links with other cultural bodies.\n\nThe need for more Chinese members was also mentioned in the Report. An Ad Hoc Committee has had a preliminary look at this matter. First steps include an updated Brochure which explains the origins, programmes, and aims of the Society in Hong Kong. This has been tabled tonight, and a Chinese version will be available shortly. Media interviews on the Society are being arranged periodically, usually in connection with interesting items in our Programme, and these will include some given in the Chinese language.\n\nHowever, it is thought that the main incentive for English-speaking Chinese to join the Society is through personal contact and outreach by our existing Chinese members. If they are happy with and in the Society, we can be sure of recruiting others. This is very much in the Chinese way. Expatriate members can help by being friendly and outgoing on our local visits. By these means, we will keep our Chinese members and add to their numbers. Already, there are welcome signs that this is happening. It is a better means than running special drives for Chinese members, although this has also been under consideration.\n\nXV", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211314, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "6\n\nher the confederation grew until, at its height in 1809, it comprised between 50,000 and 70,000 individuals and the 1,200 junks referred to in the introduction.\n\nThe Confederation in action\n\nBy mid-1808 the military success of the confederation was such that the Ch'ing government's policy of sea war had been soundly defeated. The deaths of the Brigade-General of the Bocca Tigris, Lin Kuo-liang, and the Lieutenant-Colonel, Lin Fa, coupled with their losses of material resulted in the reduction of the provincial fleet by half and an even greater penetration of the Pearl River Delta by the pirates.\n\nLin Kuo-liang's replacement, Hsu T'ing-kuei, was defeated in July 1809. Although he managed to destroy most of the White Flag Fleet in the process, he himself was killed and he lost ten of the thirty-five mi-t'ing or rice carriers in his war fleet. The situation was now desperate as pirates were able to destroy government war junks faster than the dockyards could build them, and most of the provincial fleet's auxiliary salt and fishing vessels were out of commission as well.\n\nPirates were now able to bring their penetration of the Pearl River to new heights as Black Flag Fleet leader, Kuo P'o-tai, set out at once on a six-week foray into the inner passage that resulted in the deaths of 10,000 individuals. On August 11, 1809, he burned the customs house at Tzu-ni, ten miles from Canton and sent messengers to the Governor-General warning that if ransom was not forthcoming, the city would be attacked.\n\nAt the same time, the Red Flag Fleet leader, Chang Pao, worked the **outer passage** or main channel of the Pearl River and destroyed two forts near its mouth. At the Second Bar, he sent a fleet of Chinese war junks running, destroyed towns and villages all the way to Pan-yu and Nan-hai counties, and defeated the government's newly-constructed vessels at Sha-wan.\n\nForeigners, too, were alarmed at the strength and audacity of the pirates, who, on September 5, 1809, simultaneously detained the vessels of the Siamese tribute mission in the mouth of the Pearl River and sent\n\nPage 30\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211452, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "144\n\nlater he told Father that quarantine was over and the demand for rice was now greater than the supply and that it was a good opportunity to make some money. He suggested that First Uncle send 200 bags of rice to Honolulu if, in his judgment, the prices seemed right. Father also thought of dealing in cars and tobacco, but Grandfather learned the quarantine was extended to these products so that it would be impossible to send them into or out of the islands.\n\nAs early as 7 December 1899 Father had begun to look for other employment and thought of applying to Bishop Bank which Samuel Damon had bought from Bishop. On 12 December 1899, Grandfather promised to get in touch with Ho Fan and the Rev. Damon about contacting Samuel Damon about it. Ho Fan was a receiving teller at the bank and was empowered to make loans. He was therefore considered a person of some influence. Samuel Damon happened to be away at that time, but when he returned on the 20th, Grandfather suggested on 26 December that it would be better if Father wrote to Ho Fan and the Rev. Damon himself. On 26 March 1900, Grandfather informed Father that business was so slow with the bank that it was not hiring. Soon afterwards, on 9 April, Father was notified that Ho Fan had been to Wong On Tai to urge Father to return to Honolulu to work at the bank. There is no record of when Father went back to Honolulu, but it must have been after 19 April 1900, when Man Sing was for sale. The starting salary at the bank for Father was 25 dollars a month. For the next nineteen years he served the bank faithfully, under George Carter, an irascible 'boss' who might have been well-meaning but who gave Father many miserable moments. We were more than surprised, yet touched, when he attended Father's funeral.\n\nFather's next important step was to choose a suitable wife. Outstanding among the usual considerations for selecting one, an important feature was that his wife would have unbound feet, a decision which Second Uncle heartily approved of in his letter of 21 October 1900. Mrs. Leong Yau, a good friend of Mother's, was the matchmaker. She arranged not only to be photographed with Mother, but also to walk with her by a designated place so that Father could be there to have a good look at her, unknown to Mother, of course. I understand that Father was too shy to take a good and long look. Mother was considered fortunate to be chosen by the son of a merchant and by someone working for a 'haole' firm. My parents", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211455, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "147\n\naway from a Sunday evening service to watch some people playing dominos, even though I was too young to realize that they were gambling. This was the only time Father had ever whipped any of us, an indication of his extreme anger at me. He really did not approve of the corporal punishment that Mother administered on Ruth and me, and when Helen came along, he asked Mother not to spank Helen so much. He was never tempted to do anything against his sense of right and wrong. When a relative tried to involve him in opium, he would have none of it, even when his relative thought Father would succumb to the temptation once the drug was sent to him without his consent. When the 'goods' arrived at the pier and Father got the bill of lading, he refused to accept it so that it was returned to San Francisco.\n\nFather was always trying to advance himself and his family, educationally, not only with books but also with experience. I can still picture him before a kerosene lamp at the family table reading, practising calligraphy, or teaching Ruth before she was old enough to attend school. Ruth was quiet, studious and bright, and learned quickly. I was active, impulsive and spirited, somewhat of a clown at times, but not so bright as Ruth. On one occasion when I was no more than four, he tried to teach me addition in Chinese by memorizing 'one tangerine and two tangerines make three tangerines'. I consistently got it wrong, and in frustration Father rapped me on the head with his knuckle, at which I ended up in tears so that Mother had to come to the rescue.\n\nHe bought books and dictionaries for himself and children's books for us. I used to be fascinated with a book about birds where the bluejay acted as the policeman among them. I used to pour over repeatedly the illustrations in our huge Bible and in other books, letting my fantasies take over. He bought a large bookcase for these books, which included textbooks he and Ping Lim had used and the Chinese classics he had studied in China. I grew to love them and often used them as references. Mother, who had a tendency to throw away anything that reminded her of her deceased loved ones, unfortunately gave away most of these books while I was in Nebraska. It was lucky for me that she kept these Chinese books that included the classics which I had proudly used when I attended Chinese language school and which Father would explain to me if there was something I could not absorb at school. When Ruth graduated from the 8th grade, Father shed tears of joy. How much greater his joy would", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211499, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "191\n\n24\n\nacquire new books. Everything seemed to be going well until the outbreak of World War I. Mrs. Ayscough's 1917 report summarized those war years!\n\n+\n\nThe continuance of the abnormal conditions caused by the war have rendered the normal development of libraries impossible; all exchanges from Europe are irregular in their arrival, and those from enemy countries arrive not at all.\n\nThat interest in Far Eastern affairs is greater than of yore is evidenced by the fact that the library is used by resident members, while those members who live in the interior, seem more and more anxious to avail themselves of the privileges granted to those who pay the registered postage on books they desire to take from the library,\n\n25\n\nOnce the war ended, the library rebounded quickly. To increase donations of new books, the society decided to review only those books which had been deposited in the library and letters to that effect were sent to publishers in Europe and America. About this time Samuel Couling, author of the Encyclopedia Sinica, wrote:\n\n26\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society Library in Shanghai can have nothing said against it but one thing. It is admirably catalogued and attended to, the room is comfortable, and it is generously kept open during long hours for the studious public. Its only fault is that ... its outlay on books must be limited, so that although it possesses many works of great value there is always the chance that the very book a student needs most is not there. The library is a credit to the Society rather than to the public spirit of Shanghai.”\n\nThe fifth edition of the catalogue was printed in 1921, this time in shelflist order, and showed 3,092 titles, up by almost one-third from the last catalogue of 1909. The range of publications was impressive. In addition to the expected monographs and journals, there were extensive document holdings issued by the Shanghai Municipal Council, including minutes of the ratepayer's meetings, Water Works reports, Recreation Fund reports; publications of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service including tariff tables, lists of lighthouses, buoys, and markers, trade", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211516, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 233, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "209\n\nof the words in Cantonese, which sound similar to words meaning “more sons\". This custom was, however, unknown in the Sha Tin or Sha Tau Kok areas.\n\nThe hot air balloons made by the villagers are made in this way. Firstly, suitable green bamboo is found, cut, and shaved to provide a flexible but tough strip of bamboo skin (see plate 2). This is bent round to form a hoop, with the green skin facing inside, for maximum strength, and bound together with twine. This hoop of bamboo forms the rim of the balloon, and it is stiffened by ribs of thin wire, tautened with wire wound around the centre point. Once the rim is complete, it is carefully glued to the open end of the balloon proper (see plate 3). The balloon proper consists of sheets of rice paper glued together to form a cylinder open at the base and closed in to a conical shape at the top. The balloon has no struts except for the single rim hoop. The balloons can be from 15 to 30 feet in height depending on the amount of time, effort, and cash expended: the diameter of the rim, however, has to increase with any increase in size, which makes the larger balloons awkward to handle.\n\nMeanwhile the motive power of the balloon is prepared. Previously, this was a ball of shredded rags of hemp cloth or kapok bound tightly with thin wire. The ball was soaked with peanut oil. The oil-soaked ball was then set in the sun for the oil to concentrate by evaporation. Once it had concentrated it was soaked with oil again, and again set to concentrate. This was repeated until the whole ball was filled with a soft, tallow-like fatty substance, the concentrated essence of the oil. Nowadays, the ball is made of cotton waste and is soaked in diesel oil or some other commercial oil, for greater convenience.\n\nThe completed balloon, and the oil-soaked ball, are taken out to a site outside the village, away from houses which might be at risk from fire (see plate 4). A small fire is lit on the ground, and the balloon is held over it by a group of the village youths. As the fire warms the air inside the balloon, it slowly rises up and the wrinkles in the balloon skin smooth out (see plate 5). As this process goes on, the \"tail\" of the balloon is attached to the centre of the wire struts at the rim: this tail is a long string, up to 100 yards long, with firecrackers attached, or else strings of fire balls — smaller versions of the oil-soaked ball prepared earlier. These have to be carefully held by village youths to ensure they are free", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211555, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 272, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "248\n\nThe precise uses to which this new social organization might be put varied. (p. 160, emphasis mine)\n\nIf all of this can be reduced to \"politics\", then what are we to think of political history as a kind of historiography? Is it just the history of politicking and wheeler-dealerism at the local level? It is precisely this kind of eventual but nonanalytical historiography which gave rise to more serious forms of social history in the first place. If Faure is sincerely interested in reconstructing such a social history, I think one can only conclude that his historical synthesis remains premature, to say the least, in spite of his bold intentions.\n\nSimilarly, with regard to his critique of anthropological attempts to perceive the ancestral hall as a locus of communal wealth, to the contrary, I think Freedman comes away unscathed. An anthropologist of functionalist persuasion is not interested in whether property is bestowed as a royal fiefdom or accumulated over generations as a process \"on the ground\". In the end, the ancestral hall is made possible only as a condition of that pre-existing wealth. Simple (and ridiculous) as it may seem, this is in the nature of a functionalist argument.\n\nOn the other hand, Faure would have been much more to the point had he been able to see that this argument was made possible only under the assumption that one can explain in theoretical terms the operation of a lineage apart from the circumstances of its historical evolution. This is, of course, the point of departure for Freedman's attempt to construct a model of Chinese lineage organization, irrespective of actual historical considerations.\n\nFaure's data shows instead that the kind of phenomenon one has taken to be the sociological ideal-type of the Chinese lineage is in fact a historical peculiarity rather than the inevitable consequence of the model itself. Moreover, rather than seeing the ostentatious ancestral halls of \"The Five Great Clans\" as being exceptional in comparison to more recent lineages which have not been able to replicate the \"official style\", as Faure put it, I have been struck by a peculiarity of a rather different kind which embraces both greater and lesser lineages found in the New Territories and perhaps elsewhere throughout south China as well.\n\nIn all known instances, as one looks at individual villages, one rarely if ever finds ancestral halls for anything more than the founding ancestors or the founding segments (fong in Cantonese (C), fang in Mandarin (M)) of that village, even when there is sufficient corporate wealth to permit the establishment of further ancestral halls for subsidiary segments, as would be expected from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211567, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 284, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "260\n\nexception. In villages affected by large-scale emigration, houses are often occupied by close agnates, making the inaccuracies of the official record even greater. How Faure was able then to extrapolate that a certain descendant must have moved out during a certain generation (p. 51) is pure and unfounded speculation. He (p. 57) should refrain therefore from talking about the native's \"mental picture\".\n\n7 Please note that I do not claim that settling into a new village is impossible but rather unusual from a native's point of view. What is required on the part of the two parties is a mutual sense of \"belonging\" to the community, not just the fulfillment of “objective\" membership criteria.\n\nIn Wo Hang, the village I studied, it would be very easy to map out on the basis of genealogical information residence patterns according to affiliation to particular ancestral estates and to show that particular blocks of land \"belong\" to (the members of) specific estates. However, one has not proven that the villagers actually think in those terms. In fact, upon further questioning, they will repeatedly deny that there is any such territorial imperative and that people are \"free\" to live wherever they choose. When asked where they would build a new house if \"free to choose\", they would almost always build in the immediate neighborhood of their own house and in the vicinity of people with whom they are familiar (i.e., close relatives).\n\nThere are many ways of maintaining one's closeness to one's heung-ha after physically living away. Building or maintaining a house there is the most obvious way of keeping a permanent base. Many overseas Chinese have built new houses in the village without the slightest intention of ever living there, instead letting a needy close relative live in it. In the final analysis, the commitment to remain a villager is determined by one's willingness to maintain ties of closeness, which may involve frequent contact or just the sending of photos to keep up one's memory. On the other hand, people who move away, for reasons of breaking off ties of closeness, can seldom be expected to return. For this reason, segments which have moved out to establish new villages do not feel \"close\" (in terms of chan) to its original village, despite the \"genealogical\" linkage.\n\nAnthropologists in particular have mistakenly contrasted the asymmetric segmentation of China to the balanced segmentation of the typical African case when in fact they are simply contrasting two different definitions. If the criteria of definition is wealth, then segmentation everywhere is in fact asymmetric, unless of course one admits to being communist.\n\nBy its absence of an ancestral hall, the Lins of Wufeng should be a perfect example demonstrating that the cult of the ancestral hall is a phenomenon of locality which is not analyzable in terms of the model, structural or otherwise.\n\nThe rise and fall of the yeuk is perhaps a good example reflecting changes of a social milieu-at-large. It is perhaps easier to argue that the \"great\" lineage-villages and the yeuk were products of the same \"structural\" environment. Such an argument has always been central to the concept of a so-called temple-alliance system. However, crucial to this **structural environment is much less the empirical existence of the social structure per se and more importantly the fact that this structure serves to define rights and obligations of persons “as against the world”, as Radcliffe-Brown put it. In historical terms, the yeuk and the temple-alliance system disappeared under the period of colonial pacification, which not only made such a system of security functionally unnecessary or superfluous but also made the idea of a territorial structure incompatible with the increasing penetration of a global economy and the dissolution of a traditionally regional consciousness.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211660, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "50\n\neach bearing a different surname. Depending upon which source you accept the maximum number of individual surnamed Pestilence Wang Yeh would appear to be a mere 106 or 132 out of the 360.\n\nThere are at least five or six different legends describing the origins of these spirits which vary enormously both in general and in detail with the most popular story heard repeatedly in Taiwan and South-East Asia being of 360 musicians deified by an emperor of China. Cautionary stories about the threat to the populace from the 360 Plague Gods were common throughout China but other than in Fukienese communities they were not referred to as Wang Yeh. In some versions the spirits of the musicians spread out all over China and in our major legend five particular spirits, deemed special protectors of the area, ended up in the Changchou and Ch'uanchou area of Fukien.\n\nThe different legends, in general, claimed that the group of Pestilence Wang Yeh were 'scholars killed by Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, the unifier of China in 210 BC, who ordered the burning of books and the burial of Confucian scholars'; 'T’ang dynasty literati who died as a result of the folly of the emperor T'ang Ming Huang (685-762AD)'; 'The 360 Ming literati who refused to serve the usurping foreign dynasty, the Ch'ing and hanged themselves, (mid-seventeenth century AD)'; 'The five scholars who killed themselves to save villagers from an infected well'; or, finally, are 'spirits of the man-in-the-street who died of plague and became Plague gods'.\n\nA few temple keepers claim that the Pestilence Wang Yeh are subordinate to the Lord of Mount T'ai and of the Underworld (T’aishan Ta Ti 泰山大帝).\n\nThe following are a number of the legends in greater detail. The first relates that during the reign of T'ang T'ai Tsung (627-649 AD) five scholars who had been unsuccessful at the imperial civil service examinations had stayed on in the capital living on what they could earn playing music. The emperor summoned them to the palace to play for him and had at the same time the Taoist 'pope' Chang T'ien Shih (Chang the Heavenly Master) in audience. The emperor wishing to test the 'pope's' magical powers ordered the musicians to play in the cellar whilst he told the ‘pope' that there were five demons in the basement. The 'pope' using his secret arts killed all five. The emperor was both appalled and ashamed of what he had caused and deified all five.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211669, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "59\n\ndeities are not pestilence deities. The confusion has been compounded by the Fukienese themselves when over the years they unconsciously accepted all deities bearing the honorific Wang Yeh as protectors from epidemics.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe term Wang Yeh is best translated perhaps as 'The Excellencies'. It was a title given to imperial princes or lords, and interestingly it was also a term used by robbers for their brigand chief. See Plates 9-14 for illustrations to this article.\n\n2 There has long been controversy whether the Pestilence Wang Yeh are shen (Supernatural beings, spirits or deities) or kuei (shades of the human dead and pejoratively used for ghosts, spectres and demons). One god carver in Singapore explained that Pestilence Wang Yeh are \"half-deities\", (pan shen) that is half-shen and half-kuei. However, whilst a number of Pestilence Wang Yeh have ferocious faces, the great majority are portrayed as standard deities with no indication of demonic characteristics. An elderly and authoritative Fukienese god carver in Singapore explained in hushed tones that the Pestilence Wang Yeh are neither gods nor demons, are feared but not revered, and not only protect against plague but also cause it. They are, he repeated, semi-deities from the lower echelons of the bureaucracy of the Afterworld who do not like the human world and therefore cause trouble and bring calamity and misfortune. However, if prayed to they are quite prepared to care for devotees who seek protection. For this reason, more often than not the scale of devotion and offerings to the Pestilence Wang Yeh is greater than that provided to more powerful but orthodox gods.\n\nE\n\nDoolittle J. Social Life of the Chinese 2 Vols: New York: (1865).\n\nA god carver in Singapore suggested that Pestilence Wang Yeh have been given surnames so that no particular surname group is left without a specific deity to worship.\n\nThe only time that all images can be guaranteed to be on their altar in their temple is during the temple's annual festival.\n\nThe altar of Chu Wang Yeh in a temple in Lukang, Taiwan was destroyed by a flood some fifteen years ago. Of the three Wang Yeh images in the temple at that time (Chu, Ting and Nieh) only one image, that of Chu, was recovered. Although a new temple has been built for the three but only containing one image, the one of Chu recovered from the flood, devotees have largely stopped away. They seem to have lost confidence in deities who were unable to protect themselves against disaster.\n\n7\n\n**At Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong in the afternoon of the third day (of the chiao festival of ritual purification held every ten years) a ('paper boat') ritual to chase away the Demon of Pestilence is performed. A Taoist issues orders to a Heavenly Envoy to carry off the boat and puts the Demon of Plague on a boat and leaves it in the outer seas. The Heavenly Envoy, like the King of Ghosts (Yenlo Wang), has a fierce-looking face. It is an image of about one metre high and the boat is a small one of about one and a half metres long. A Taoist lifts the Heavenly Envoy to a stage in the matshed theatre and chants a question-and-answer song which instructs the Heavenly Envoy. Having finished that, the villagers then put the Heavenly Envoy into the boat loaded with offerings. The boat is taken to the sea shore and left on the waters.\" Tanaka Issei: \"The Jiao festival in Hong Kong and the New Territories\", The Turning of the Tide Religion in China Today: Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, and Oxford University Press (Hong Kong); (1989), p. 287.\n\n8 There is a K'ang Yuanshuai, ie Marshal K'ang, on several Taiwanese altars where he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211715, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "105\n\nbamboo comes from Vietnam. Saigon Bamboo, as it is often called, has the double advantage of high inflammability and resistance to worm. Not every factory can afford to buy this type of bamboo cane, however, especially those engaging in the production of low-priced commodities. These factories, instead, often use Haifang Bamboo (T), Peihai Bamboo (EV), Shant'ou Hairy Bamboo (€, Phyllostachys edulis) and Formosan Bamboo (A). These sticks are cheaper but their fibrous surface makes the manufacturing processes difficult.\n\nThe second type of bamboo used is called Grass Bamboo (#†, ts’ao chu) which comes mainly from China. The species is more often used to manufacture joss sticks of greater length. The length of this type of joss stick demands a species of bamboo which has the joints wide apart. Moreover, the bamboo exploited must be old and dry enough so that the bamboo core can support the immense weight added to it by the incense powder. As a result, bamboo bark and cambium are very seldom used as they are either too brittle or too slender. Instead, the xylem of old bamboo is used since it alone is hard enough.\n\nIn the field study, it was found that other than three incense wood mills and four factories specializing in the production of incense coils, all the factories used bamboo canes from China as their basic raw materials. Nevertheless, three of them reported the use of bamboo from Singapore as a supplement in the production of higher grade joss sticks. Only one uses the canes from Thailand.\n\nTo prepare bamboo trees for joss stick manufacture, they are first felled into logs, and then cut into canes. The canes must have a square cross-section so that the final products do not flatten out. In addition, the longitudinal cross-section of the canes has to be uniform in order to produce fine joss sticks.\n\nb) Incense Wood Milling\n\nWithin the broad categories of joss sticks and incense coils, incense products can be further sub-classified on the basis of their fragrances. In general, the fragrances of joss sticks include Aloe-scented, Sandal-scented, Cypress-scented, Rose-scented, Lign-aloe-scented, benzoin-scented and scentless. These different kinds of scents come from different kinds of fragrant trees. Today, aloewood is obtained from Aquilaria agallocha which is widely grown in Hainan Island and Annam. Ch'ên-hsiang (D), as it is often called, is not commonly used because it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211721, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "111\n\nhsiang have one coat of incense powder only. The joss sticks produced do not necessarily have to be dried under the sun. They can either be blown dry or put under the sun for 5-6 hours. The joss sticks produced by this method vary in lengths from 6 ts'un 8 fên to 1 ch'ih 6 ts'un. The shorter ones may have their handles dyed red, but it is more common for them to be wrapped in silvery paper.\n\nMoulding Method\n\nJoss sticks of still greater lengths and widths are produced by moulding. By this method, joss sticks of 1 ch'ih 5 ts'un, 2 ch'ih, 3 ch'ih 6 ts'un, 4 ch'ih 8 ts'un and up to 6 ch'ih are manufactured. The corresponding diameters are 5 fên, 6 fên, 2 ts'un, 5 ts'un and 7 ts'un. To support such a thick coat of incense, a stick bamboo, rather than a bamboo sliver, is used as the core material. The manufacturing process is done entirely with bare hands. Incense paste is moistened with water to such a consistency that it is easily stretchable. It is then put on top of a bamboo cane and moulded in a downward direction by squeezing and working with the hands until the bamboo is evenly covered with incense paste. The excess paste is then removed. The outer coat of the joss stick is put on by means of rolling on a pile of coloured fragrance and then a wooden slab is used to smooth the surface of the stick. Finally the sticks are hung in a sheltered but well ventilated place. Drying under direct sunlight is strictly avoided as the high speed of evaporation will result in cracks on the surface.\n\nWinding Method\n\n36\n\nThe last method is for the production of incense coils by winding. Incense paste squeezed into the shape of strings is wound around a metal ring, the width of the string determining the duration of burning. Incense coils are then classified into half-day coils, full-day coils, 7 day coils, 14 day coils and 30 day coils. Winding must be done on a flat surface in order that the strings can be coiled neatly. Then they have to be unfolded onto a rattan rack to allow free circulation of air. The unfolding is done dextrously by two incense coil workers.\n\nIn the early days, squeezing was done with a wooden press (mu t'ou cha). Though this wooden press is no longer in use, Osgood, writing in the mid-seventies, provides a detailed description,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211747, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "137\n\nCheung (張) lineage of Wong Pui Ling. The area, however, was fertile, rich, and, by the later eighteenth century, becoming relatively densely populated. Growth of stronger and less politically quiescent inter-village groupings could be expected, and the clearest evidence of this comes from the nunnery.\n\nThe nunnery was founded by the villages of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung on the one hand, and Loi Tung and Man Uk Pin on the other. Loi Tung was a tight lineage alliance of three large villages of the Punti Tang clan (Loi Tung Lo Wai, San Wai, and Tai Tong Wu), and Man Uk Pin was a single, large Hakka village, predominantly of the Chung clan. The nunnery lay in six shares: Ping Che, Ping Yeung, Wo Keng Shan, Loi Tung, Tai Tong Wu, and Man Uk Pin. Of these, the Wo Keng Shan and Tai Tong Wu shares were probably there to reflect the greater size and strength of the Chan and Tang lineages within the grouping. In practice, however, the nunnery was controlled by the four clans of the Mans, Chans, Tangs, and Chungs, and normally probably had one Manager drawn from each lineage.” This group of eight villages, most of them large and wealthy, clearly represents a new generation of inter-village grouping in the Ta Kwu Ling area.\n\nThe importance of the road through the Miu Keng pass has been discussed above. The position of the nunnery on the road was not only of value to travellers seeking shelter, it was also of major strategic and political significance. The road was the only passage through the hills, and could not be by-passed. Whoever controlled this pass controlled much of the Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun road. The foundation of the nunnery was the result of the grouping together of a few villages which were clearly seeking to capitalise on their strategic location, and thus to increase their local political leverage and district significance. The political significance of the foundation should not be downplayed. The religious impetus behind the foundation should not, of course, be ignored, but the strategic significance of the grouping is too strong to be overlooked. The nunnery-founding group of villages seems to be, in fact, an early example of a Yeuk (約) mutual defence and support inter-village alliance. The villages which had founded the nunnery seem to have worshipped there together at the Yu Lan Festival in the summer, when vegetarian food was served to the elders and faithful in front of the nunnery.\n\nIt is likely that the Ping Yuen Hap Heung people used their alliance with the groups east of the pass to strengthen their position as against", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211770, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "160\n\nminority in the foreign community.' The effects of this discrepancy on the local dramatic scene will be dealt with later.\n\nBy far the greater part of those who came out to China were active as merchants or mercantile assistants; in general, they were in their late twenties or early thirties, and lived together in the hong of their firm. During business hours they traded in silk, tea, opium, and sundries; leisure was sought mainly in sports: racing, fives, bowling, cricket; by some in the Shanghai Library (established 1849), or the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (founded 1857). All, however, seemed to love the amateur theatricals that were put on several times a year.\n\nII. Theatrical Criticism\n\nIn order to appreciate the information that has come down to us about the theatre in early Shanghai, some attention should first of all be paid to the way in which contemporaries wrote about it. (For reviews see the Calendar of Performances).\n\nThe main, in fact the only, source as regards the early history of the foreign settlement in Shanghai is the “North China Herald”, a weekly that was founded in August 1850. A daily edition, the “North China Daily News” was begun in 1864, but the surviving copies date back only as far as July 1866. Other papers were published in the period under discussion, notably the \"Shanghai Recorder\" (1862-1869), but of these too all trace is lacking, with the exception of one volume (1865) of the \"Shanghai Commercial Record”, the overland edition of the \"Shanghai Recorder\". So we have perforce to rely mainly on the \"North China Herald\"; and, to be sure, a worse source can be imagined. In its pages at the least we find the facts about which plays were performed and what kind of musical entertainment was enjoyed. That is, until about the beginning of 1866, for after that date there is a noticeable decrease in theatrical notes. Then one has to resort to the Daily News.\n\nAll articles, which could be as long as a column, were anonymous, or, in a few cases, signed with an initial or a pseudonym. Not that it matters very much, for generally speaking the critic, if we may call him so, went to considerable lengths to avoid any harsh treatment of the amateurs on the stage. Apparently it was not deemed proper to pull the rug from under a handful of well-meaning gentlemen who devoted their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211844, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "234\n\nin 1846 and kept by the London Missionary Society. (NCH 25.11.1865; SCR 24.11.1865).\n\n14.12.1865 (Thur)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"Woodcock's Little Game” (1864)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.P. PLANCHE: \"Faint Heart never won Fair Lady\" (1839)\n\nT: Comedy (1 act)\n\nC. SELBY: \"The Boots at the Swan\" (1842)\n\nT: Comedy (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps\n\nF: Prologue spoken by Edward Lawrance and Mr. Groom\n\nTh: Lyceum Theatre (1)\n\nN: First performance of the season by the S.V.C.\n\nR: Again only stage names were used in the review.\n\nIn Morton's piece, Woodcock's Little Game, Woodcock was played by Mr. DOLEFUL who had \"evidently elaborated the part with great care.\" His only drawback was \"a certain monotony in gesture\". Another central character was Mrs. Colonel Carver, \"inimitably performed by Mrs. St. CHAWLES. The majestic lady's make-up was characteristic and costly and many of her attitudes and tones reminded us of Miss Snowdon [Mary Jane Chippendale, 1837-1888; but she made her debut only in 1863 JH] whose imposing personation of similar female parts has assisted so many Haymarket triumphs\". Exceptionally some slight attention was also paid to the staging when the critic wrote about the second scene that the \"occasional glimpses of the whirling waltzers and partners-seeking promenaders were skilfully managed\". In Faint Heart never won Fair Lady Mr. DOLEFUL again took a leading part, that of Ruy Gomez. However, the Herald was not inclined to accept this gentleman's reading of the character without some exception, as a greater prominence might have been given to the comic element. Lightness, vivacity and élan are indispensable in all characters written, as this one was, for Charles Mathews. However, as he had appeared in a humorous part before, Mr. DOLEFUL was perhaps anxious to show his versatility\". Travesty abounded: \"The most difficult part was essayed by Miss SOFTLY [as Charles, the King of Spain, a role cast for an actress JH]. For a man to play a lady's part is hard, for a lady to play a man's part is not easy, but for a man to play a man's part as a lady would play it is hardest of all. Charles II, the mischievous, frolicsome schoolboy at large, newly awaking to a sense of royal responsibility, has been a favourite part with some of our cleverest and prettiest actresses and Miss SOFTLY held her own when compared with these formidable competitors\"\n\nAbout the Boots at the Swan the reporter confessed that \"we are inclined to think this piece has been acted enough\" (but hardly in Shanghai where it was on the boards for the first time). \"The elaborate mimicry of the inimitable ROBSON made the deaf Boots as popular with the London public as Sam Weller had been before him, but a peculiar talent alone can render Jacob Earwig interesting to an audience ten thousand miles away from the little theatre in Wych Street* (i.e. the Olympic Theatre in London). (Henry Morley wrote about Robson in this part, 1857: \"Mr. Robson, although deaf, is humorously wide awake. He is the Boots who is brisk and alive to all the humour of the street, who would be preternaturally knowing if he could but hear what people say. In word and look and action he is more the gamin than the simpleton. The extravagance of a most laughable farce is heightened by him to the utmost and there is not a long face to be seen while he is busy on the stage\"\n\n***\n\n136)\n\nBut, to continue with the Herald: \"FUNNYDOG, the new low comedian, is a valuable accession to the company. His stable yard dress, wooden attitude and imperturbable face formed a perfect study for Leech and Cruikshank, and the finish with which he played the long, and we confess to us tiresome, drunken scene shows", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211865, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 280, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "255\n\nDIARY OF VOYAGE TO CHINA*\n\nFrom March 10, 1861 to August 6, 1861\n\nIt is with a combination of curious feelings that this journal is commenced. There is a mingled hope and fear, gloom and light, anticipations of a bright future, and occasional forebodings of ill. Yet whatever may befall, whether pleasure or pain, prosperity or adversity, it is a joyful fact that nothing can happen unless directed by a Father's hand. Jesus knows all, and safe under his guidance all will be well.\n\nSunday, March 10th\n\nWent on board at ten o'clock, and just put matters straight enough in the cabin to be able to spend the Sabbath. About eleven I came on deck, just as the vessel began to move out of the basin. She was towed down the Thames. A great crowd of people saw her departure. As she floated down the Thames I often gave way to melancholy thoughts, when I considered all I was leaving behind, and all that is in store for me. Sometimes the burden felt greater than I could bear. Yet I felt that Jesus was with me, and under his guidance I feared no ill: it was my Father's business I was about, and surely he would give me grace and strength to perform it.\n\nThe Prince Alfred went easily down the river, and cast anchor off Gravesend. On board were several people, friends of the captain, who although it was Sunday, were going to Gravesend for a holiday and treat, at his expense. They were a swearing set of fellows, and seemed to be old captains of ships. A Sunday in such company I never spent. I would not go to lunch with them, and at dinner time I was glad when all was over, and I could be alone in my cabin. But even here their shouting and laughing, when the wine and spirits began to take effect, was a great nuisance to my ears and mind. I never spent such a Sunday in my life. So as soon as it grew dusk I fastened my cabin, made up a bed and tried to sleep. For two days I had had a headache, which now grew worse, and very little sleep I had. My cabin, although in the quietest part of the ship, is rather the worse for noise. Every person that walks overhead on the deck is distinctly heard, and the noise is enough to keep one awake, to say nothing of the rolling of the ship.\n\n* From the John Fryer Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211870, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 285, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "260\n\nlearned. He was however bullied and swore at, and then locked up in a room all day, and then handcuffed and put down in the hold, and then tried again, when at last the captain laid hold of him by the nose, and sent him out of the cabin. We have now the cook as steward, and I fear he will not stay long. It must be a misery to live with such a man, and all I wonder at is that the crew put up with so much bullying, and cursing. I would not, for an hour.\n\nWe are now getting into a regular way of living. We breakfast at half past eight. There is coffee, eggs, biscuit, cheese, butter, beefsteak, hash, etc. every day nearly. Since my seasickness I have a most ravenous appetite. I am quite ashamed at the amount of food which I eat, and then I am always hungry. I shall soon grow fat at this rate.\n\nAfter breakfast I put my room in order, and set all straight for the day, after which I read a little and go on deck, where I walk about for an hour or two, and amuse myself one way or another till twelve o'clock, when there is luncheon of bread and cheese, etc. Then I read, or sing, or walk the deck till three o'clock, when it is dinner time. We generally sit an hour or so over dinner.\n\nThe captain generally spins a good long yarn to Captain Moult, which to me is never very interesting. Sometimes they try to get me into an argument about something or other, and generally do it by running out against missionaries, or something of that kind. I find it hard work to stand my ground alone.\n\nLast week I lost a day in my reckoning, and thought that Sunday was Saturday. It might have been for all the difference that was made on board. They never make the least difference between Sunday and other days. It was the most miserable Sabbath I ever spent, except the week before when I was so unwell. I spent the greater part in my room alone, reading and singing. Often did I wish myself at home again, among those who love and serve Jesus. Yet I must try to do something for him here, for there is plenty of room for it.\n\nBut to return to my subject in hand. We take tea at six o'clock, and then there is a bit of a supper at eight. Then about nine we all go to our berths. It is generally about ten before I am in bed. Even there the noise and rolling about prevent one from sleeping all the time. But I suppose I shall grow accustomed to the inconvenience before long.\n\nPage 285\n\nPage 286", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211888, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 303, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "278\n\nit is a comfort that the greater part of the journey is over, and the best of it is that it is the worst part, for we can now reckon on fair winds nearly all the rest of the way.\n\nSince I made my last entry we have had an accident of some sort nearly every day. The topsail yard sprung again and had to come down and up for the fourth time. What could be expected when the Sabbath was broken to repair it in the first place. It was the beginning of our misfortunes.\n\nOur provisions and water hold out very well; and in fact it appears we shall have all the best last. For a fortnight past we have been regularly feasting. There are six fowls left still, I am so tired of fowls that I would always prefer a piece of salt beef; which let me say is the best I ever tasted. The potatoes are getting rather \"seedy\" but that is no matter for next week we shall have plenty of yams that are far better.\n\nThere has been a comet in sight every morning for some time. This morning I go up at half past five to go on deck and inspect it. I suppose you can see it in England. It is gradually increasing in size and looks much like the one in 1858.\n\nI find the early rising was so beneficial that I mean to turn out early every morning to acquire the habit of doing so when I reach China. I had a cup of tea, etc. at six o'clock, which I think will also be a good idea. All hands in the cabin have coffee at six, but they make it so strong and disagreeable to my fancy that I cannot take it; so I have hitherto gone without, and had tea for breakfast at half past eight.\n\nI shall know a thing or two about navigation before I am done. Every day I keep finding out something fresh.\n\nThe captain has used some of the men rather cruelly in my estimation, In fact all his actions partake of such a brutal character that I am thoroughly disgusted with him. I cannot endure it sometimes, and manage to tell him of it pretty plainly in an indirect way, so as to lead him to pass sentence on himself. Sometimes after I have put matters before him he confesses he is the worst man he ever met with, and that no man could be worse than he is; he also has confessed to me that his conscience torments him sometimes. But it is useless to argue with an ignorant headstrong man, so I can do little in the way of convincing him. I have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211890, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 305, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "280\n\nWe are now going on very slowly indeed, and unless the breeze very much strengthens it will be a while even now before we reach Batavia. The weather is much warmer today and I have spent nearly all the time on deck. No one can imagine, unless placed in my circumstances, how much I long to see land once more, and to tread on \"Terra Firma\".\n\nWednesday, July 3rd\n\nI am now writing under far different circumstances to my last. Here I am in a fine hotel in Batavia, recreating and resting till the vessel is able to proceed to her destination. How I came here I will endeavour to describe as clearly as possible, although I have had to pass through so much that I have forgotten one half of it.\n\nNow to proceed. The day after we spoke with the \"whaler\" I have just mentioned, we spoke to another which came from the same town. She had lately caught a whale, and as she sailed past I saw the greater part of the blubber upon deck, cut up in large pieces. They were boiling some at the time, and the scent was quite alarming, as it blew toward our ship. They wrote their longitude by their chronometers on a large board, and we did the same. We were 90 miles out, and this is the result of the captain's ignorance and negligence in all probability.\n\nThe next few days we had a complete calm so that we were only making a few miles a day. The ship having only half of her sails that were capable of being used, made it slow work indeed. Day after day we went on till at last one afternoon we sighted \"Java Head\". The captain's impatience at the lightness of the wind knew no bounds. He walked about and swore, and stamped, and bullied, but all to no purpose. The next day we got off Prince's Island, and just moved a few miles along the shore.\n\nPleasant indeed it was to be in sight of land once more after such a long stay on the wide ocean, with nothing to vary the tediousness and monotony. If it had been a dreary desert land it would have been a treat to look at it, but how great the pleasure to see with the glass the most fertile and luxuriant island in the world, completely embossed with trees, of the most graceful and imposing appearance. We could see the waves as they washed the shores, and hear their dashing against the sandy beach. The heat was something considerable on account of the calm. Butterflies and small insects came off to the ship from the shore, and were the first", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211896, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 311, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "286\n\nand pretty. There are abundance of trees of all sorts growing at the sides of the roads. The shops of the Chinese amused me very much as we went along. At last we came to \"Hughan's store\", where there is a great space, with easy chairs, etc. for loungers and loafers. Hughan is a ship chandler, and by keeping this place pretty comfortable he gets the captains of all the English and American ships there, and of course gets the job of supplying their ships with provisions, etc. Before the whole lines of stores and offices there is a path, with a roof to it so that one can walk about for an hour without being in the burning hot sun, which in Java is very injurious, especially to Europeans.\n\nWe took a short drive about the town with the captain, who was looking out for some spars for the ship, and then set off out in the country to Madame Baines' Hotel, which is the only English place where one can get to. It was a three-mile drive, but the beautiful appearance of the place made me think nothing of the distance. The Dutch, to whom the island belongs, are the greater part of the European population; consequently, the town is in every direction intersected by canals as is Holland. These canals serve the purpose of drainage, washing, and to keep the air cool. On each side of them is a very wide road, shaded by large trees from the sun. Thus the streets are very wide and airy. There are, of course, a great many bridges. The European houses are very grand, and nearly all built on the same model.\n\nOur two poor horses at last brought us up to our Hotel, where we arrived about two o'clock. It was half an hour before we could get anyone to attend to us, since it is the custom to sleep in the middle of the day. At last, after walking about over the house, we were met by our hostess, a Scotch lady of colossal dimensions, but withal a pleasant agreeable old party, who at once made us at home, and got us some \"tiffin\", or breakfast. All her servants are Malays, and she can speak the language very fluently. Indeed, when well spoken, Malay is a pretty language.\n\nHer house is an average specimen of all the European houses in Batavia. It has only one story on account of earthquakes, but it is very lofty and airy. There is a large dining hall and entrance hall, while round the house are the verandahs, where people spend a great part of the day, and especially the evenings. Facing the road, the verandah is very wide and lofty. In the garden is a stream, running round a small island, which has some fine clusters of trees, which are so curious that I cannot describe them. Some of the leaves are as large as a good-sized tablecloth. Round", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211908, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 323, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "298\n\nwere so responsible. Everything appears strange, and I feel altogether out of place.\n\nFor the five days I have been here I have messed with Mr Beach and Cleverly. I have of course never been in such society, and it is hard work to be the gentleman. However I tried my best. Mr Beach being absent I had to take the head of the table, and goose was given me to carve. I could not help thinking which was the greater goose of the two. But still with a little tact I manage to pass muster, and they both seem well satisfied with me. We spend two hours over dinner, from eight to ten, and then a chat in the Drawing Room, and to bed at eleven.\n\nIt is rather queer work to be looked up to in the way I am here. No one would imagine me to be the boy that used to clean boots and knives and run errands13 at a brewhouse. Truly God has been good to me, who am most undeserving.\n\nThe building is very large and beautiful. I had no idea of its being so extensive. I shall have 52 students when the vacation ends on Sept. 1st. At present there are 12 who live too far off to go home. The study room is a fair sized one, and adjoining is the college chapel. The work before me is quite unlimited. I can launch out as far as I like, and raise the college to almost any amount of perfection if all goes well. I have a Chinese master who greatly pleases me. He is the headman, and his appearance and manners are highly satisfactory. He will doubtless prove a great assistance to me. The other three are away for vacation. The Chinese classical master is a Chinese graduate, or what in England is equivalent to a Master of Arts. I understand he is a clever fellow in his department.\n\nThe library, which is my sitting room, is a large fine room, with glass doors and venetian shutters. One end faces the sea, and the other opens on the verandah. I have one part of the house to myself. I have also a private parlour, with three large glass doors and a fine view, and a bedroom, but I have ordered them to be lime washed and repaired, and shall enter them on Monday. At present I live in the bishop's bedroom, which of course is not a bad berth,\n\nThe selection of books in the library is very large. I have never before seen such a useful and valuable selection. There are on a rough guess about 5,000 volumes, and I have the entire charge of them, to lend out", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212086, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 28, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "There and elsewhere, the Rural Committees carried out many executive functions at that time, and in remoter places where government was less in evidence they continued to do so until much later.\n\n3. Self-Management among Tsuen Wan Squatters\n\nUnlike the villagers, the squatter population of Tsuen Wan in the 1950s and 1960s was neither homogenous nor long-settled. It mostly comprised newcomers from many parts of Kwangtung and elsewhere. However, like other groups of Chinese who happened to find themselves living together in a strange place far from home, they too were imbued with the spirit and practice of these long-exercised \"self-help skills\". It was, therefore, in no way surprising to find that able, willing men (and sometimes women) in the squatter areas organized themselves and their fellow residents for greater convenience, providing local services through their own efforts and giving very little trouble to the authorities.\n\n71\n\nThis self-servicing was decentralized. Committees formed in each squatter area in the time-honoured way, because men came forward and were accepted by the rest. There was a real need for their services. Life in such places was (and to a lesser extent still is) often fraught with dangers arising from fire, and from the floods, typhoons, landslips and similar natural disasters to which Hong Kong is periodically subject. However, the leaders were used to taking such precautionary measures as were possible and were ready to meet new crises as and when they occurred. There was an equal need for the exercise of initiative in daily life, since at that period the amenities provided by government departments or the public utilities mostly ended at the settlement fringes or some point in the neighbourhood. The leaders had to make their own arrangements to obtain and distribute water and electricity inside the lanes of the squatter areas, and they sometimes carried out minor public works. They also formed fire-fighting teams and security patrols. Disputes between residents over a wide variety of causes had to be resolved, and sometimes triad elements had to be deterred from taking a hand in “providing” security and services for a consideration. In short, the task of the local leaders was not light, even for capable men. It needed time, effort, and the right contacts in the community and the bureaucracy, including the local police, and cooperation and support from the residents was vital.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212161, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "80\n\na large temple and a thriving cult. He was deified after a number of miracles were credited to his spirit. His legend has now grown to describe him as an anti-Japanese political hero, rather than the anti-social thug and robber he actually seems to have been. Locally it is said that he was a local layabout, who had worked first as a herdsman and later as a servant. He fell into bad company, was taught martial arts, was given to gratuitous violence and caused the Japanese military gendarmerie so much trouble that they offered a high reward for his capture. He does not appear to have supported any cause, and was a crude, bombastic swaggerer. Eventually he was killed. There are a number of versions of how he met his end, the most common being that he was killed by his own family at the age of 35 to avoid Japanese retribution. Another version claims that he was struck on the head with a shovel by his mistress acting as a paid agent of the Japanese. This is now either forgotten or ignored, and though it is popularly claimed that Liao nowadays is the patron deity of Taiwanese gangsters, he is not prayed to for any specific help, simply for general favours. The question this now raises is how many of the local heroes of greater antiquity than Liao were also local thugs with their wickedness lost in time and their prowess and valour exaggerated?\n\nCults of the Deified Spirits of Local Charismatic Heroes and Worthies\n\nA number of small, one hall temples in comparatively remote villages in Taiwan bear a single image. These represent a very local hero who was in some way involved in the anti-Ch'ing [Manchu] campaigns of the mid-seventeenth century. The most common legends claim that the hero in question was a general or admiral who had served under the great Ming general Koxinga. [Koxinga not only liberated Taiwan from the Dutch colonisers but also fought the Manchu invaders who had conquered the mainland overthrowing the Chinese Ming dynasty replacing it with the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty]. In practice many of these local heroes were no more than village headmen who led their trainbands of armed villagers to fight under Koxinga. Religion can give nationalism an emotional power and in Taiwan, first under the Japanese conqueror and, then under the threat of invasion from the Communist forces on the mainland, nationalism has been enhanced by the deification of local heroes who faced and defeated the Dutch invaders and later opposed the Manchu usurpers of the Chinese throne.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212209, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "128\n\nis an immense shortage of persons qualified to fill the professions; doctors, engineers, chemists, and even lawyers. In the interests of the future all students are automatically exempt from conscription; so are all those of whatever station in life who have escaped from Japanese occupied territory. There would be no inducement to escape otherwise. Under the circumstances we can appreciate the necessity for these exemptions. When recruits are required for the army, a quota is allocated to each district: the magistrate in turn calls for a levy from each village to fill his quota. Those with money or influence can buy off their sons; it is the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden who are taken. They are roped together, with a loop round the left forearm, so that they can still use the bamboo pole to carry a load, and marched off to the training centre. There many die, and others desert. Indeed, there is now a class of professional deserter. If recruiting is going on in a district, these men will turn up and offer to serve in the place of anyone who has the price. They collect their money, march off with the conscripts, and desert at the first opportunity, to repeat the performance elsewhere. There are means in China of tracing missing men back to their families, but amidst the confusion caused by years of war it is easy for the vagabond to give a false name and address.\n\nThere are so many millions of displaced, homeless, nameless people in China now; we should not be too critical of these methods. The wonder is that the Chinese government has been able to carry on at all under such immense difficulties. Instead of an insistence on saving face, and thus misleading world opinion, had there been a reasonable relaxation of the iron censorship in order that the world could learn of the prodigious efforts the Chinese have made, there would, I think, be a better understanding of, and greater sympathy for, China's problems.\n\nThe afternoon of the third day we rolled over the iron bridge that spans the North river, a tributary of the West river, into bomb-shattered Kukong. Here I waited for the train and was fortunate to find a carriage, which had been reserved for a party of British sailors from the crews of the gunboats at Hankow; they were being evacuated to Hongkong, and kindly made room for me in their compartment. The track near Canton had been broken during a recent raid. We had to alight there and make our way to the city as best we could; riding through in a rickshaw I had leisure to observe the extent of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212235, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "1.54\n\ncan take in vain. So they make up for it in everything that a corrupt heart can imagine. Mr Beach gave me the translation of a few of those expressions, which I might perchance hear from the servants, or even from pupils who have just entered college, and have not forgotten the language of home. But let me hear the least sound of it, and I will send them off about their business pretty quick. But it is surprising the alteration that takes place in Mrs Chinaman when she is under the influence of Christian teaching and religion. The alteration is greater generally in them than in the men.\n\nMy headmaster is a married man; he was married a few months ago in the Cathedral and lives in the rooms under the Bp's Drawing and Dining Rooms! His wife, Mrs Hah-shoe, is quite a decent little body, and often toddles outside, and walks round the grounds at the back. She was trained up in a Christian family, and he was brought up by the Bp, whom he accompanied once to England.\n\nPopular opinion goes a great way with a Chinese. Rather than offend popular opinion, they will make any sacrifice. Only let a man get a bad name among the men, and then let him offend one of the women. The ladies know they may go any length with impunity, so they follow him, and mob him round the place, giving him every species of annoyance, and he dares not molest them for fear of his fellow men of the village and popular opinion. His only remedy in such a case is either to commit suicide, or to get off as far away as he can. Suicide among them is very common.\n\nThere is a custom among them that if one of a family gets a good berth, all his relations come and live upon him. Poor Hah-shoe has all his relations living upon him, which is a great drawback; but popular opinion compels him to submit to it. A child is only looked upon as a servant who is to help support his parents and relations. Few among the lower classes ever think of saving money for old age. Popular opinion also makes them continue the pig-tail, although they say it is a religious affair, by which, when they pass over a narrow slippery plank upon entering the regions of the dead, if their wickedness has been so great as to make them likely to fall off, there is a kind friend who catches them by the pig-tail, and hoists them safe over on the other side.\n\nAnd now having treated of the Chinese, I will go on to describe the remainder of the population. The English are generally rich, proud,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212419, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 361, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "338\n\nconsiders the scale of the task that he set himself. The Search for Modern China is a landmark in China scholarship. Spence's talent as a raconteur and his immensely readable style enable him to succeed in making history interesting to the nonspecialist.\n\nOn the present succession crisis in China, Spence points out the eerie parallel between Deng Xiaoping's behavior today and that of Mao Zedong in his last years, with each man anointing, then purging, one hand-picked successor after another. Even greater perspective is provided by his relating the present situation to that of the early Qing dynasty, when the emperor Kangxi was brought, as Spence put it, \"to the edge of despair\" by the succession question (p. 245), not being able to decide which of his many sons to name as his heir.\n\nThe author provides a rare perspective on China's centuries-old struggle to come to terms with the rest of the world,\n\nHe recalls that the reformers of 1898 had sought to resolve this tension by developing the concept of ti, or \"essence,\" and yong, or \"practical use.\" This formulation, Spence says, \"affirmed that there was indeed a fundamental structure of Chinese moral and philosophical values that gave continuity and meaning to the civilization. Holding on to that belief, China could then afford to adopt quickly and dramatically all sorts of Western practices, and to hire Western advisers\" (p. 225).\n\nSpence sees Deng and the other Chinese leaders today falling victim to the nineteenth-century fallacy that China could join the modern world entirely on its own terms, sacrificing nothing of its prevailing ideological purity\" (p. 746).\n\nHe feels this effort is doomed to failure. \"The task was even more hopeless in the late 1980s than it had been in the 1880s”, Spence concludes. \"What was left of Chinese Communist doctrine after the rejection of many of Mao's ideas and the emergence of the enterprise system was a thinner gruel even than the overformalized Confucianism that had guided the reformers of the late Qing. The party elders flailing out at Zhao Ziyang and his noisy supporters were reacting in an oddly similar way to the Empress Dowager Cixi as she struck back at Emperor Guangxu for attempting his Hundred Days' Reforms\" (p. 746).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212505, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "39\n\nthe Kuan Lineage in K'ai-p'ing County. Ann Arbor, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.\n\nWright, Arnold 1908 Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China their history, people commerce, industries, and resources London, Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Company. Ltd\n\nWu, Chang-chuan 1974 Cheng Kuan-ying A Case Study of Merchant Participation in the Chinese Self-strengthening Movement (1878-1884) PhD thesis Columbia University\n\nXia, Dongyuan. 1982 Zheng Guanying ji (Collected materials of Zheng Guanying) Volume I Shanghai, Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe\n\n1985a Wanqing yangwu yundong yanjiu (A study of self-strengthening movement of late Qing China) Chengdu, Sichuan Renmin chubanshe\n\n1985b. Zheng Guanying zhuan (A biography of Zheng Guanying) Revised edition Shanghai, Huadong Shifan Daxue Chubanshe\n\n1988a, Zheng Guanying ji (Collected materials of Zheng Guanying) Volume II Shanghai, Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe\n\n1988b. Sheng Xuanhuai zhuan (A biography of Sheng Xuanhuai) Chengdu, Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe\n\nXu, Dingxin 1991 Shanghai zongshanghui-shi 1902-1929 (A history of Shanghai Chamber of Commerce). Shanghai, Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Chubanshe\n\nYamagami, Kan'ichi 1938 Sekko zaibatsu-ron so no kihonteki kōsatsu (A discussion of Zhejiang financial magnates its basic observation) Tokyo. Nihon Hyōronsha\n\nYu, Qixing 1970 Wu Tingfang yu Xiangkang zhi guanxi (The relations of Wu Tingfang with Hong Kong). In Shou Luo Xianglin Jiaoshou Lunwenji Hong Kong, Wanyou Tushu Gongsi 255-78.\n\nZhang, Wenqin, 1984. Cong fengnan guanshang dao maiban shangren Qingdai Guangdong hangshang Wu Yihe jiazu de pouxi (From feudal official merchant to comprador An analysis of the family of howqua of the Guangdong hong merchants in the Qing). In Jindaishi Yanjiu 1984/3 167-97. 1984/4 231-53\n\n1989 Cong fengjian guanshang dao maiban guanliao Wu Jianzhang shilun (From feudal official merchant to compradorial bureaucrat An analysis and discussion on Wu Jianzhang). In Jindaishi Yanjiu 1989/5 31-54\n\nZhejiangji zibenjia de xingqi (The rise of Zhejiang clique of entrepreneurs) Edited by Zhongguo Renmin Zhengzhi Xieshang Huiyi Zhejiang-sheng Weiyuanhui Wenshi Ziliao Yanjiu Weiyuanhui Hangzhou, Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe, 1986.\n\nZou, Yiren 1980 Jiu Shanghai renkou bianqian de yanjiu (A study of evolution of the population of old Shanghai) Shanghai, Renmin Chubanshe", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212516, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 70, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "50\n\nby combing through all of Ruan Yuan's publications, more than 30 published chronological biographies (lie zhuan) of Ruan Yuan of various lengths in Chinese; one essay each about him written in English, French, German and Japanese; numerous annotated catalogues of Qing writings; literally hundreds of biographies or biographical notes of Ruan Yuan's contemporaries who might have had an affiliation with Ruan Yuan; and as many informal writings by these scholars as I could locate and tolerate. I did not include anyone, no matter how well-known, whose association with Ruan Yuan appeared to be only incidental. For instance, I did not include Commissioner Lin Zexu (1785-1859) who paid a courtesy call on Ruan Yuan in Yangzhou after he was dismissed from office in 1840 or 1841.\n\nI have found information on these 200 individuals, some more complete and others only sketchy. The main reason for their association with Ruan Yuan was a common interest in scholarly pursuits, encompassing calligraphy, textual criticism, ancient inscriptions, phonetics, etymology, historiography, poetry, and, in a less expected area for 18th and 19th century China, a concern for the environment, but Ruan Yuan also had among his associates people with lesser scholarly achievements, perhaps, but with greater claim to his largess, for instance, relatives, townsmen, and other scholars he had to accommodate.\n\nThrough Zhu Gui, Shao Jinhan (1743-1796) and Wang Niansun (1744-1832), had exposed the young Ruan Yuan to the new vistas of the School of Han Learning as well as the application of the empirical method devised by Dai Zhen (1727-1777) to investigate the Classics. Ruan Yuan was to become a powerful exponent of Han Learning. Bi Yuan had introduced to Ruan Yuan the excitement of studying ancient inscriptions on stone. Zhang Xuecheng had written to Ruan Yuan “about collecting antiquities in Zhejiang, an activity Ruan Yuan might be interested in in his leisure time.” Zhang also decried that \"there were many libraries and a strong historical tradition (in Zhejiang in the past); many of the scholars who worked on the Yuan and Ming histories came from this area, and there were better historical collections here than elsewhere, But all is scattered and lost!\" In time, Ruan Yuan was to cajole private collectors to preserve and catalogue their libraries, and looked for titles which had not been included in the Si ku chuan shu.\n\nA number of senior scholars received largess from Ruan Yuan. Two", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212521, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "55\n\nintellectually lethargic. It was also from Liu's diaries we discover that Ruan Yuan's house was burned down on April 2, 1823 with heavy losses, including Ruan's entire library.1\n\n31\n\nThe founding of the Xue hai tang in Canton brought to Ruan Yuan a number of Cantonese scholars. Besides Chen Li, who was cited by Hiromu Momose in Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period as perhaps \"the most brilliant among a group of Cantonese scholars who developed eclectic theories mid-way between Sung Neo-Confucianism and the School of Han Learning,\" the others included Lin Botun, Wu Lanxiu, Ma Fuan, and Xu Rong, Tan Rong from Nanhai, who had passed the provincial examination in 1824 and had been appointed to the Xue hai tang by Ruan Yuan but had chosen not to take the metropolitan examination, nevertheless persuaded his friends, the Wu Family hong merchants, to print the large collectanea, Yue ya tang cong shu, consisting of 180 titles.\n\nIt is disappointing that the personalities and idiosyncrasies of these scholars cannot be discerned from reading their writings. Employing the techniques of detective novelists by investigating whatever might be construed as clues that come my way, I have been able to reconstruct the person of Ruan Yuan to a certain extent, but the scholars around him have completely eluded my attempts. They were not easy prey. Neither were they easy to manage. At times their eccentricities hindered progress of Ruan's work.\n\nThe completion of Shi san jing zhu shu fu jiao kan ji was delayed considerably because of personality conflict among the compilers. The idea for such a project had originated with Lu Wen chao (1717-1796), a scholar-official from Hangzhou who had spent a greater part of his time copying various old editions of the Classics by hand, noting the differences and printing the corrected texts. After Lu's death his student, Zang Rong, who was working on Jing ji zuan gu, persuaded Ruan Yuan to undertake the project to print the Jiao kan ji as well. In 1799, after consulting his staff, a much more ambitious project became envisaged, to print the Thirteen Classics together with all the notations throughout the ages.\n\nBeing then Governor of Zhejiang with resources at his command, Ruan Yuan asked Duan Yucai (1735-1815), a Classicist with expertise in etymology and phonetics, to take on the responsibility as editor. Considering the task too arduous for a single man, Duan recommended his friend Gu Guangchi (1776-1835) to share the work. Gu, in turn, brought other scholars.\n\n33\n\nPage 75\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212549, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "83\n\nfuriously, threatening to cancel the exhibition if the 13 paintings were banned. The opening ceremony was postponed one hour to wait for a settlement which finally came with concessions from the Chinese officials. In their speeches at the ceremony, the Americans repeatedly referred to the \"American\" principle of free artistic expression, and Huang Zhen, Commissioner for External Cultural Relation and Wick's Chinese counterpart, expressed strong reservations about the paintings.\n\nTo Wick, the exhibition was a showcase to the Chinese that in the United States, free artistic expression was a universally accepted value and artists in the United States enjoyed greater artistic freedom than in China, whose cultural policy, as it refused to accept abstractionism presented by those 13 paintings, was \"totalitarian\". Wick's hard line on this issue also implied that the United States supported those unorthodox Chinese artists and writers who were being criticized in the campaign against \"bourgeois liberalization\".\n\nWick's management of the abstract painting incident indicated that the United States government would sacrifice good relations with China to the goal of presenting American cultural imagery to the Chinese people. Arts exchanges with China were no longer an instrument to create a warm atmosphere, under which circumstance both parties would co-operate nicely when differences occurred. Putting this position in the anti-Communist background of the Reagan Administration, a theme of explicit cultural warfare seems to have raised its head.\n\nCompared with the American Government, the private sector's support for arts exchanges with China was stimulated by fewer political considerations. Private interests provided support for such projects in various forms, including the funding of organizations specializing in U.S.-China arts exchanges, such as the Center for United States-China Arts Exchange, and the funding of specific exchange projects. In the realm of U.S.-China arts exchanges, financial support is a very important factor. The exchange programmes could not be realized without such support, but such programmes normally cannot show a profit. To discuss the numerous organizations and private exchanges involved is impossible. What can be done in this paper with regard to the private sector's support of cultural exchanges is to examine closely the Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange and to derive some conclusions from the Center's activities.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "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": 212614, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "148\n\nnormal form of exercise was the evening stroll. There is, perhaps, nothing which so readily distinguishes the Chinese from their lugubrious neighbours to the west, the Indians, as their cheerful spirit. That evening the scene was more animated than usual. I could read in the happy faces of the crowd the joy they felt at finding themselves at last no longer alone in the struggle.\n\nArrangements had been made to send the officers of our little group to various parts of the Chinese front to study war conditions. The others had already left, and I was due to leave by air for Kweilin next day. I went down to the island air-strip early in the morning to find several planes just in from Hongkong, with the families of the C.N.A.C. staff who had been living there. The American crews had flown to Kaitak from a field in China, loaded up, and flown out again all at night. Over a cup of bad Chungking coffee they described the events in Hongkong, the bombing of the airfield and the destruction of the majority of the C.N.A.C. planes, caught on the ground by the sudden Japanese attack.\n\nBy and by the covers were taken off the three engines of the old Junkers 52 plane, in which I was to fly, and mechanics started them up. The plane was the last of those belonging to the Eurasia Aviation Corporation, a Sino-German company, the only competitor of the C.N.A.C. The German pilots had been replaced by Chinese. There were a dozen passengers; we clutched our seats a little nervously as the heavy-looking machine accelerated down the runway towards the river only to rise from the ground just before we hit the water. We spiralled up above the Chungking escarpment and flew away over the Szechuan mountains at a steady hundred miles per hour, until we dropped back through a gap in the clouds to see below us the sabre-toothed hills of Kweilin. I was taken in hand by an efficient \"Fu kuan\" (Adjutant) of General Li Tsung Jen's staff and motored into the city, where I found Michael waiting.\n\nMy destination was the 3rd War Zone, the most important of the nine war zones in China. It covered the greater part of the richest provinces, Kiangsu, Chekiang, Anhwei, Kiangsi and Fukien: bounded by the Yangtze to the north, the sea coast in the east, Fukien to the south, the area of the 3rd War Zone reached west as far as the Kan river. General Ku Chu Tung, famous for his defence of Shanghai in 1937, was the Commander.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212617, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "151\n\nalong the dismantled track ran no trains, under whose wheels we could get our dummy mines, as we had been able to do in Burma where the alarm created by their noisy, if harmless, explosions had often confused the Indian engine drivers.\n\nThe magistrate was helpful: he devoted two days to tramping round with us from village to village, until we could decide where accommodation for the school might be most suitable; and he promised to build a short length of road to connect the village finally selected with the motor road so that our lorries could drive right up to the door. The village was some miles outside a small country town; I shall call it Chin Ya, the Golden Duck.*\n\nNew Year's Eve fell while I was making these investigations. The local general, with that consideration which is the charming mark of Chinese breeding, fearing I should be lonely, invited me to dinner. Since arrival in the 3rd War Zone I had asked to be kept informed of any parties of foreigners escaping from Shanghai, but no news of any escapes had come through. It was accordingly with the greater pleasure, as we were sitting down to dinner, that I was surprised by the entry of a tall bearded figure, wearing a long Chinese gown, and heard myself addressed in English. He was the first foreigner to escape from Shanghai, an American, Mr. Hawkins, the manager of one of the branches of the big American bank which had offices in China.\n\nHe told us his story while we ate our dinner. Having only just returned from leave in the States, he was staying at an hotel, which happened to be near the Bund. Early on the morning of December 7th he was wakened by the sound of gunfire. He went out to investigate and found that Japanese destroyers were sinking H.M.S. Peterel in the Whangpoo River just off the Bund. He realised that war must have broken out and dashed round to his bank to 'phone his manager. He then returned to his hotel, packed a small bag, got into his car, and drove out to the stables in the western suburb, where a friend kept two ponies which he had permission to ride. He saddled the ponies, and riding the one while leading the other, passed through the gate at which a Japanese sentry stood guard where the road crossed the barbed wire barrier surrounding Shanghai. The barrier had originally been put up by the foreign troops holding the\n\n* It is in the Tianmushan mountains, near the border of Chekiang and Anhwei, near the country town Anchi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212718, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 27, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "12\n\nother sources about whatever ensued and this reflects the virtual sole source of the material available, William Mesny himself. Several other foreigners with somewhat comparable careers to Mesny who eventually wrote their autobiographies, and therefore might be regarded as collateral, include Prosper Giquel whom Mesny refers to and who was in Hankow and established a Franco-Chinese force there in 1866, but who does not mention Mesny,\n\nOne of our problems in trying to bring Mesny, the man, into focus lies with the limited amount of material he published. It would seem from his writings that he recorded much more, a great deal of it lost during his travels which, had it been preserved, would have made all the difference to our overall picture. He appears not to have been particularly interested in dating episodes within his narratives and was only very rarely specific; and even during his detailed story of the first Kueichou campaign he ignored the temporal progression of the story, jumping from incident to anecdote and back again with scant regard for sequence. He was also cavalier in naming names. Without introduction, he includes a new name without any explanation or identification. In many instances, the individual could be identified from snippets thrown in at a much later stage, but several have remained unidentifiable. The narrative provided in his Miscellanies was published in weekly episodes years after the events, possibly from a diary, though it would appear to a certain extent to have been written up at the time. Many of the weeks' texts were divided into two separate sections, consciously or perhaps even unconsciously, one being the progression of the campaign and the other anecdotes about local fruits, silver mining, or the prescribing of drugs for the various illnesses prevalent at the time, etc. It might have been that he was stretched for material to fill the columns, and this perhaps is borne out by the number of times he repeats himself, offering greater and often unnecessary detail. Mesny also appears to have assumed that his readers, not only in Shanghai but 'world-wide', knew the general background to the Chinese political, economic, and social scene, and therefore a number of his allusions can now no longer be understood. Also, his views of the Chinese military, which we can assume should be relatively accurate at the lower echelons, would appear to be less accurate and lacking confirmatory detail, due to Mesny not being anything like as important as he would have had us believe.\n\nOne incident during the campaign in Kueichou exemplifies the confusion Mesny's account, and sometimes even his assumptions,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212732, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "26\n\nname had eventually appeared in the Peking Gazette. In 1871, he added, he was recommended for special honours on account of distinguished services on the field of battle and received the order of merit called Yung Hao with the title of Ying Yung Pa-t'u-lu [i.e. ‘Brigadier-General, the title of Knight Ying of the Order of Pa-t'u-lu, Mesny\"]. Mesny was awarded the Ying-yung for having penetrated a Miao stronghold with a few Chinese riflemen and turned the tide of battle from defeat into victory. In April 1896 Mesny wrote: 'Having lived in Hankow for some years and acquired some notoriety amongst the Chinese there, if not actual fame, the characters Wen-kao 'Eminent', were chosen and given me as a Hao or familiar by my friends.' His Chinese name is Mai Wen-kao or using a transliteration 'Mai-shih-ni [i.e. mai-knee) and his rank, Tsung-ping **General**]. In another autobiographical 'obituary' printed after his death in the Celestial Empire, a Shanghai paper, he described himself as 'I, Wen-kao William Mesny, F.R.G.S., Brevet Lieutenant-General of the Chinese Army; Knight, Ying Yung of the Order of the Pa-t'u-lu..................\n\nMesny noted on one occasion long after he had completed his military service that he had come across a battalion of Kueichou field troops with the men wearing the cuirass-shaped uniform or Pa-t'u-lu vesture, invented by Mesny in 1868 for the An-ting and Ko-i Rifle Brigades. [\"The ancient Manchu Knights of the order of the Pa-t'u-lu wore such vests as uniform when not wearing the metal cuirass, hence its significant name Pa-t'u-lu.']\n\n[NOTE: Liu Ming-ch'uan, Governor of Taiwan 1884-1891, referred to in the text as having met Mesny, initially was a freebooter who, during the Taiping Rebellion supported Li Hung-chang and the Imperial forces, and opposed the Taipings. He was at that stage a fairly lowly officer and is recorded as having received 'the honorary title of military merit, baturu': Later, when more senior he was awarded the much greater award of the Yellow Riding Jacket.]\n\nMesny was awarded the 'flowery plume' [hua-ling ##4] in 1869 together with the brevet rank of colonel after battles with the Miao tribesmen. He was also presented with the Pao-hsing in 1869. He refers to the Pao-hsing #, the Precious Planet [or decoration of the Star of China] implying that it was the same decoration as the Double Dragon Jewelled Star which he also later referred to. It was, he said, instituted after the Taiping Rebellion as a form of reward for foreigners who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212798, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "92\n\nLi Hung-chang ## [1823-1901]\n\nHe was one of the outstanding figures in modern Chinese history; a statesman and diplomat. He was Governor of Kiangsu province at the time of the Taiping Rebellion, and again was a major proponent in the self-strengthening movement in Imperial China during the latter years of the Ch'ing dynasty. He was first a soldier who came to notice during the suppression of the Taiping rebellion and later went on to help develop western economic methods to endeavour to lead China into a greater independence from western domination. He emerged from comparative obscurity commanding a few battalions of field troops with the title of Expectant Tao-t'ai of Fukien in 1859 serving under Tseng Kuo-fan (q.v.) and soon rose to fame.\n\nLiu Ming-ch'uan ## [1836-1896]\n\n劉銘傳\n\nSaid to have been a gang leader who murdered a rich villager. When the Taiping rebels threatened his area, he organised a volunteer corps which became famous as a military leader. He was rewarded by being made an official of the first rank and Commander-in-Chief of Chihli at the early age of 29. Under the command of Tseng Kuo-fan, he defeated the Nien rebels. Some time later, in 1884, he was made Governor of Fukien during the France-Chinese war and ordered to garrison Formosa. Liu was defeated in several lesser battles but held Taipei and was probably saved by a French change of policy when they withdrew from Formosa [Taiwan]. Liu was made Governor of Taiwan in 1885 and relinquished his post in 1891, dying in retirement.\n\nLittle, Robert and Archibald\n\nRobert [Bob] was a failed tea merchant who edited the North China Daily News for eighteen years. According to OM Green, he was the best-loved man ever known in the Settlement [Shanghai]. His brother, Archibald Little, who was not so loved according to others, has been credited with designing and taking the first steamship up the Gorges. He made the first attempt in 1888 but, when he got to I-chang, the officials raised a storm of protest and he had to desist; the Chinese Government afterwards buying up his ships. In 1899, he tried again, with a boat called the Pioneer, and got through from I-chang to Chungking in seven days compared with the three or even six weeks it took a junk to be hauled up by trackers on the bank. Archibald's wife, Alicia, founded one of...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212822, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "116\n\nAmerican air forces based in China and to the extensive establishments supplied to train and equip the Chinese Expeditionary Force, as the army which had been built up in Yunnan by the Chungking government to assist in driving the Japanese out of Burma was called.\n\nI was sent to Kun-ming to see about giving assistance to the Myosa of Kokang, prince of a small Burmese border state. The longest unnavigable river in the world, the Salween, rises in Tibet, flows through China, and enters Burma at about the level of Bhamo. For a stretch the river flows from east to west; to the north of it the territory is still China, to the south lies Kokang. The river then leaves China altogether, bends south, and lower down at Kunlong receives the Nam Ting flowing in from the east. The Nam Ting forms the southern boundary of Kokang, while the mountain-tops that divide the Salween watershed from the next river to the east form the state's eastern boundary. The stones marking this boundary were set up in 1898 as a result of the agreements made at that time. Kokang also spreads across the Salween to the territories of the large Shan state of North Shenwi, of which Kokang is actually a sub-state. The greater part of Kokang though is sandwiched between the Salween and China. Kunlong is the site of one of the most frequented of the Salween ferries, and it is down the valley of the Nam Ting that the projected railway from Kun-ming to Lashio, connecting China with Burma, will run. The embankments to carry the line had been nearly completed before the Japanese advance into Burma put an end to the work. To the south of the Nam Ting are situated the Wa states, inhabited by wild head-hunting tribes.\n\nThe Myosa of Kokang was a most loyal subject of the British crown, and because of that loyalty he was to suffer great injuries. When the Japanese advanced up the length of Burma in 1942, the British troops, who were covering the western flank, that is the flank towards India, withdrew into India. The civil administrative staff of the Shan States also withdrew to the west, while the Chinese armies, on the eastern flank,\n\n\"One British administrative officer, Evans, withdrew from Kengtung, away to the south of Kokang, into south-west Yunnan. He had established cordial relations with the Chinese troops there, and with their assistance organised local levies, drawn from the dispersed ranks of the Burma Rifle regiments; he used these to wage a small campaign of his own against the enemy until he was killed during an assault on a position manned by Siamese troops. He died unknown, unsupported, unrewarded, but not unsung, because at a time when throughout the East the British star was thought to have set for all time, this lonely man left a record of British pluck which will long be remembered on the border.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212918, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "212 miles of China coast to look for her. As time wore on, the distance she could travel extended until it could be anywhere from Tientsin to Hainan. The Royal Navy had an aircraft carrier in Hong Kong and this was drafted into the hunt. An aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes spotted a ship like the Tungchow anchored in Bias Bay (Days Bay) which was a well-known haunt of China coast pirates. It was indeed the Tungchow and the pirates, seeing the plane swoop over, realised that they had better decamp. Once they were away, the Captain sailed for Hong Kong where he arrived a few hours later. Although the pirates escaped, they had a frustrating piracy. They had got the wrong ship. The silver was on another ship which delivered its cargo safely. The Tungchow carried no silver but a cargo of oranges. The pirates broke open the crates in their hunt for the silver so that the ship was running with oranges which the boys gathered in quantities. The pirates did no harm to the children but at first kept them shut up in the passenger accommodation. You can imagine what tales the Shanghai party had to tell when we all got back to school.\n\nWe Leave China\n\nIn 1939 my father's tour was up and he decided, after twenty-five years, to retire from the mission field. He was in his mid-fifties and few stayed so long. Today this sounds an early retiring age, but today we have the untold advantage of constant air-conditioning to temper the severity of our summers and much greater control over diseases. The advance of the Japanese and the threatening war situation in Europe may well have influenced his decision too.\n\nIn any event, my parents and our younger sister set off from Fatshan, while my brother, other sister, and I set off from Chefoo on the last of our journeys on a B. & S. coaster for Shanghai. My parents travelled up from Hong Kong on a Canadian Pacific steamer, the Empress of Russia, which we joined in Shanghai. By this time, Shanghai had been occupied by the Japanese, though they were still at peace with Britain and America. In the occupied city, security was tight, especially round the docks, and we had to pass through several check points manned by pretty rough soldiers. Once at sea, those worries were left behind, but, as a postscript, when we sailed from Yokohama a few days later, we found ourselves in the midst of large-scale manoeuvres by the Japanese fleet and accompanying aircraft firing and bombing targets not far from us.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212961, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "or structured as indices for empirical investigation or statistical treatment. An basing on these four factors, the present study attempts to establish an analytical framework to study the concept of face.\n\nA position in society would accord a respective face to a person (Lu, 1934: 100) This is an identity given to an individual that is commensurate to his status. Class, gender, and other social differentiation combine to determine a person's face. Those who have higher status would be of greater face, and if their face is solicited to mediate conflicts, the rate of success will be higher (Bond and Wong, 1981: 26).\n\nSome experimental studies in the West also have similar conclusions. Face can be seen in the light of the relationship between two individuals, that relationship may be acquaintanceship, that is, the individual's positions in a social network (Brown and Garland, 1971). Expertise, signifying the status of an individual in a particular field, also contributes to face (Garland and Brown, 1972).\n\nBut face is not status, nor is it a corollary of the latter. Status in society gives an individual the basis for a certain face, but it does not guarantee that an individual must have that particular face. Here comes the second dimension of face.\n\nFor any position in society an individual occupies immediately renders with it a set of role expectations, the fulfillment of which will have repercussions on the individual's face (Ho, 1972: 242). In a more specific example, one who sings before an audience will lose face if one sings poorly (Garland and Brown, 1972).\n\nHwang Kuang Kuo also sees face as social position or prestige one has attained as a result of one's achievement. Thus while the amount of a person's face (mianzi) is a ‘function of his social status ... [it] is not fixed in amount' (Ho, 1975: 869). It hinges upon the 'perceived significant discrepancies between the expected and the actual social performance' (Ho, 1972: 240).\n\nIn every society, there would be a set of moral standards. As long as a person maintains decent behaviour within this set of moral standards, he would have moral face to interact with other members in society.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212965, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 33, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "performance, moral conduct and others' reactions. While the first three may vary from individual to individual resulting in a variation of potential face, they would also vary for an individual from one situation to another before different 'others'.\n\nDifferent situations would mean different considerations for status and performance. If a person sings before an ordinary audience who knows little about singing skills, his status and his role performance may be over-appreciated. In contrast, if he sings before an audience with the relevant expertise, then his status will be clearly defined and his performance may be critically evaluated (Garland and Brown, 1972). In this case, the singer may have greater face in the former situation than the latter.\n\nIn this example, we can see that face is dynamic. It has the potential of appearing greater or smaller with regard to the same individual in the same activity but in different situations. Delving deeper into this dynamic quality of face, Ho has delineated the difference between lian and mianzi. He has stated that it is mianzi which displays the dynamic qualities for it is 'a function of [a person's] status.... but varies according to the group with which he is interacting' (Ho, 1975: 869). A certain status would render a person certain role expectations from others, and the face or mianzi of him thus varies with the performance he exhibits and the judgement upon it from others with whom he interacts.\n\nAs for lian, it is 'something to which everyone is entitled by virtue of his membership in society and can be lost only through unacceptable conduct', it is therefore, only relevant to talk about the loss of it (Ho, 1975: 870). As such, a person would always have face if he behaves morally. He may have a lot of face or little face depending on his performance in a particular capacity. While a person, upon his membership in society, is entitled to lian, and will only lose it through misconduct, it can be regained through 'compensation, corrective actions, making up for one's shortcomings, etc' (Ho, 1975: 871). By the same token, a person who is not a member in a particular social group may find himself being a member in it one day and having the face (lian) accordingly.\n\nFor instance, a person who lives in a district is entitled to the lian that enables him to interact with fellow neighbours. If his success in his profession is made known to his neighbours, he may be respected, his opinions concerning the affairs of the district may be sought. He may even be elected to the chairmanship of a neighbourhood organization,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212966, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "13\n\nand upon a good showing in this capacity he may win further good opinion and treatment from fellow neighbours or, in short, bigger face. But on the other hand, if he throws rubbish casually in the district, he may be despised, his neighbours may refuse to talk to him until he changes his behaviour.\n\nIn short, the dynamic quality of face does not reside solely in individuals. It varies with the status and performance of an individual, the treatment he receives and the performance of individuals relevant to the interaction. The possession of and the amount of face predicate on the judgments of his total condition in life, including his actions, those of people closely associated with him, and the social expectations that others have placed upon him (Ho, 1975: 883),\n\nThe Attributes of Face: Honour, Influence And Deference\n\nThe dynamic qualities of face can be seen in the light of honour, influence and deference. If a person has a lot of face, he would have a lot of honour, influence and deference, or any one of these. An actor who wins a lot of fans is successful in his career. His status in the movie business and role performance belong to the higher rung. He will have face or big face, and thereby honour, influence and deference (for illustration, please refer to Figures 1 and 2).\n\nTake Jacky Chan of Hong Kong as an example. His movies often see full house in cinemas and top audience rating lists, which means that others' reactions are also favourable. With success in the movie business, he has won places in Most Achieving Youth Awards, he has been named to honorary chairmanship in various organisations etc. This is honour for him, since his success is being recognized by people in other fields.\n\nHis influence may be felt in society. A person may go to a hairdresser and tell him to cut a Jacky Chan's style for him. Some people may dress themselves in a special way just because 'Jacky Chan does that'. If he illegally parks his car on the road, he may be stopped by a policeman. But upon recognizing him as Jacky Chan, the policeman may not fine him. In short, honour, influence and deference can be purchased or obtained by a person with face (King and Myers, 1977: 9-10). Bigger face would mean greater purchasing power for honour, influence and deference. Hence it would be more advantageous to have a bigger face than a smaller one.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213114, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "164\n\nits foundation. There important roads used to meet near here. The most important was the main east-west road in the county, which connected the county city, Nam Tau (Nantou, ), with the Deputy Magistrate's city of Tai Pang (Dapeng, ), via the important market of Sham Chun. * Because of the greater desirability and comfort of water-borne traffic, the section of this road along the north shore of Mirs Bay was not much used. Instead, much of the traffic went by a ferry that ran parallel with the shore, from Sha Tau Kok to Sha Yue Chung.\n\nAt Wo Hang Au, a few miles west of Sha Tau Kok, the road was joined by another important east-west route. This was the road from Yuen Long to Sha Tau Kok via Tai Po.\n\nThe third route was the main road from Kowloon to the north-east. This road carried the traffic from Kowloon to Wai Chau. This road crossed Sha Tin Pass to reach the coast of Tolo Harbour at Yuen Chau Tsai. A ferry carried the traffic from Yuen Chau Tsai across Tolo Harbour to Ang Chung (Chung Mei, near Bride's Pool). From Ang Chung, the road climbed steeply past Bride's Pool and Ah Ma Wat, and then down to the shores of Starling Inlet at Kuk Po. Another ferry then took the traffic across Starling Inlet to Sha Tau Kok. There was also a road which ran from Ang Chung through Luk Keng and Nam Chung, to join the Nam Tau and Yuen Long roads at Shek Chung Au, thus avoiding the second ferry. From Sha Tau Kok the Wai Chau road crossed the shoulders of Ng Tung Shan, and so down to Wang Kong (Henggang, ), and thence to Wai Chau. A branch of this road ran from Sha Tau Kok to Po Kat (Buji, ). This Kowloon to Wai Chau road was more important than might be expected - the long ferry sectors made it more comfortable than the land-based alternatives. The Basel missionaries regularly used it when travelling between Hong Kong and Po Kat, for instance. 50\n\nThis system of roads and ferries was in existence from the Ming at the latest. It will be noticed that the roads do not cross at Sha Tau Kok. Sha Tau Kok stands, however, in the centre of the few miles of road where all the roads run together for a short distance. The site of the market, therefore, was a good one commercially.\n\n* See Map 3.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "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": 213302, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "104\n\nChristians believe in, rather than by fung shur? Indeed for most religions and persuasions when faith is involved, there is usually no rational way to measure faith. Although, so often, the more rational the person's view the greater the degree of rationalisation. This does not of course imply fung shur is completely illusionary. A person must believe in the cure. So much, after all, is psychological. Many things in life are.\n\nThose who are afraid of contracting some illness become disease conscious, which helps to attract what they fear, just as those who think always in terms of health are helping to attract health. It is a case of attunement. A natural force, seemingly, turns on the switch. An aggressive attitude towards fighting disease can help prolong life. If you change your outlook you change your vibrations.\n\nOne Englishwoman told the author:\n\n\"There are electrical fields. Why can't there be other fields too, like those emanating from crystal? Again, there are things like 'thought transference'. There must also be other dimensions of which we are not really aware. Things that give out an aura.\"\n\nCertainly most Chinese and many Westerners do believe in the 'breath of the dragon'. As one Irish friend explained to the author:\n\n'Fung shui? Yes, it works so well. I'm an advocate. Believe and it will happen. Get fung shui working for you. When my Chinese wife and I last went on leave to Dublin we bought a house, largely because of fung shui, on the spur of the moment. With a street number of 80 it also has a good setting.'\n\nTo some extent fung shui is commonsense dressed up in the language of fairy tales and folklore. As people enter the next millennium (western reckoning) it is opportune to question, as mankind stands at the crossroads, whether the world should continue down a path that leads to an even greater alienation from nature and contrary to the laws of creation.\n\nAs new energies surge into the earth's fields, if man, in the home, on the job, or in the grave, as a result of the fung shui master creating a better environment, is more content, then fung shui will have achieved an important aim. If man is more content he will feel more comfortable. He will accomplish more and enjoy life more.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213338, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "142\n\nThe Society's archive, which is currently held under Mr. David Gilkes' arrangements in the Main Library of The Chinese University and comprises papers on the formation of the Branch together with most of our Council Minutes over the years, is another source of information for our historian. Venues can be ascertained from these papers.\n\nIf Ian Diamond, Hong Kong's first Government Archivist and our former Hon. Secretary and Vice-President, will forgive me for mentioning it here, the venue that I best remember was the small room in the Public Records Office used for our Council meetings in the early 1980s (when Ian was on overseas leave we went to the \"Bull and Bear\" across the road!). A portrait of Her Majesty the Queen hung, as a scroll painting, on the wall; but as the years went on, the scroll became considerably the worse for wear, browning and curling in at the sides. We used to comment on this quietly periodically, but nothing happened. Finally, at one Council meeting, from the chair, and meaning no disrespect to Her Majesty, I took the bull by the horns and in a loud voice asked Ian when he was going to \"remount the Queen\"; whereupon the meeting became somewhat disorderly.\n\nThe Future: Post 1997\n\nTurning from past to future, at the time of writing, our Society is just as active and energetic as in the past; but with 1997 just around the corner, it is only natural for us to wonder what will happen thereafter. I remain of the view that we have a valuable role to play; but as in other Asian countries - and despite the hoped-for continued participation of a small nucleus of local Chinese who will remain dedicated to the work and ideals of the RAS - it is likely that it will, as hitherto, continue mainly to be set among and directed at Hong Kong's expatriate community. There will be a difference here, too: for as has already been happening in recent years, this will more and more be composed of transients, with far fewer long-term non-Chinese residents than in the long post-war period. There will, correspondingly, be an even greater need for the RAS to provide more \"cultural bridges\" to the local community. Thus, the study of Asia - and of Hong Kong and China with it - will surely continue to be (in Professor Drake's words) the Society's main \"Heritage and Task\".\n\nHowever, the likely change in expatriate membership may cause problems in recruiting some of the leadership and expertise upon which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213353, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "158\n\nOn the one hand, government/semi-government institutions began to promote an awareness of local history and conservation of Hong Kong's heritage. We may see this as part of the government's 'community building' effort after the devastating riots of 1967. On the other hand, the demographics of Hong Kong have also changed. In the past, with their high mobility, people residing in Hong Kong had little sense of identity with the place. This led the Governor, Sir Alexander Grantham, to compare Hong Kong in the 1960s to a railway station; as people came, made money and moved on, it was a place with no roots. By the 1970s, things were no longer so. The generation which has grown up in the Territory after the war were much more rooted in the place and in the 1970s, as they came of age, they grew more curious about the history of their home city. A few actively sought knowledge through study and research; most of the others became willing customers of anything that might tell them more about Hong Kong.\n\nInstitutionally, one focus of growth in the study of local history is the museums, the other, the Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO).\n\n## Museums\n\nHong Kong's museums are run by the two municipal councils, the Urban Council and the Regional Council, which, besides being responsible for sanitation services, liquor licences and so on, are also responsible for enriching the quality of life in Hong Kong through promoting and providing recreation, sports and the arts.\n\nTo give local history greater prominence, the Museum of History was separated out from the Urban Council's City Hall Museum and Art Gallery in 1975. At first, it operated only on a small scale, using rented premises in a multi-storeyed commercial building. In 1983, it moved into its own building, and subsequent extensions enlarged its exhibition area to 1520 sq m. A permanent exhibition, called the Story of Hong Kong, outlining 6,000 years of development from the Stone Age to modern times, was installed. It also stages thematic exhibitions from time to time: last year (1995), two out of three exhibitions were about Hong Kong; Hong Kong's Traditional Trades and Crafts, and Life Under the Japanese Occupation, 1941-45. The Museum runs two branch museums, the Law Uk Folk Museum, which is restored from a 19th century Hakka house, and the Lei Cheng Uk Branch Museum, which is centred on an excavated Eastern Han", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213458, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "21\n\n \n 20\n Natural features are believed to represent animals or figures, such as a girl gathering flowers. Objections on the basis of “fung shui” belief have been raised by villagers when public works have been undertaken. If any project is likely to affect the “fung shui\" of an Hakka village, the villagers believe that a \"tun fu\" ceremony held by a geomancer will safeguard the village. Even in 1912, however, the old ideas of \"fung shui\" were being modified so far as they proved incompatible with foreign laws and ideas; and nowadays the belief is dying out gradually among the younger generation.\n \n\n124\n\n“Fung Shui” objections also occur in the domestic field, to the opening of windows in a house that faces another or a temple. Such a window is thought to be a voracious tiger. A lamp flashing in the direction of another house is counted equally obnoxious. Such objections are mainly confined to Cantonese, but the Hakka, from their greater belief in animism, are more concerned with the \"fung shui” of trees and rocks.\n\nThe siting of graves, as already indicated, is also influenced by \"fung shui\" belief. For the first five years or so, a body is usually buried in an earth grave (wuct chong). Then it is exhumed and the bones are placed in an earthenware funerary pot (kam tap). Such earth graves and earthenware pots are sited in groups where the \"fung shui\" is good. Building or cultivation near such sites is not permitted. If the family or clan of the deceased is wealthy, then the funerary pot holding the bones is usually installed in a masonry grave, which again is sited according to the principles of \"fung shui\" belief, usually on a hill (shan fan). A half-circle in front of such a grave with a radius of ten yards is regarded as sacrosanct, and any disturbance of that ground is, by custom, forbidden.\n\n126\n\nBefore leaving the subject of land, it should be observed that even in the New Territories, the Chinese customary law may be excepted in cases involving land by the provisions of the Ordinance.3\n\nMarriage\n\nThe Chinese customary law of marriage, concubinage, and divorce obtaining in the New Territories does not appear to differ from that same customary law to be found in the Colony.12 From time to time,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213578, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "144\n\nseen largely as protection forests. Most of these plantations were approaching maturity, although they were totally destroyed for fuelwood during the Japanese occupation when supplies of fuel wood from China were cut off.\n\nAn interesting account of village forestry is given in the Hong Kong Government Gazette of April 1905. \"When the New Territory was taken over by the British in 1899 there were about as many large pine trees growing in the district as there are small ones now. The Chinese, being afraid that their new masters would confiscate the trees, began to cut them down wholesale. From the accounts which have been collected there must have been something like eight million disposed of in this way, a course which has been ere now, no doubt, bitterly repented; for as a matter of fact the only restrictions enforced by the Police was with regard to the cutting down of large wild trees and Fung Shui trees round the villages. The confidence of the tree farmers towards English rule having become gradually re-established and safety from encroachments by neighbouring owners being further secured by the presence of the Police, re-afforestation soon began. The scheme of defining and registering the plantation was therefore received in general with great readiness by the farmers who came forward when called on and paid their licence fees. The scheme was designed to encourage the farmers to re-afforest by giving them secure tenure of the trees, to secure re-sowing of felled areas and to provide a proper demarkation of the ground in case of disputes\". About 57,000 acres (23,750 ha.) were licenced for planting in 1905.\n\nEarly in the British occupation of the New Territories the conservation of the remaining natural woodlands was considered. “It is evident to the most casual observer that primeval forest has almost ceased to exist in this part of China. There can be little doubt that our valleys and probably the greater part of our mountains were once plentifully clothed with luxuriant virgin forest. Patches of such forest can still be seen at Little Hong Kong, in this island and in the more inaccessible parts of the New Territories. The Committee appointed to report on the forestry possibilities of the New Territories in 1904 recommended that certain of these areas should be reserved and protected by Government. During 1905 the areas of natural forest in the greater part of the New Territories were carefully examined and mapped by this department. The total extent of that mapped is about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213591, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 187, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "158\n\n“salt excluder”, and Aegiceras has salt glands and is a “salt excluder”).\n\nMangroves also show morphological characteristics related to their \"physiologically xerophytic\" habitat (where water must be conserved to reduce the intake of high salinity water). Thus, many have water storage tissues in their leaves (Avicennia, Aegiceras, Lumnitzera (Fig 6), Kandelia). Many have a waxy thick cuticle and epidermis, and have stomata restricted to the lower leaf surface (Avicennia, Aegiceras, Kandelia, Excoecaria). In Avicennia the stomata are sunken and this species also has the undersurface of its leaves covered by blunt hairs (trichomes) to prevent water loss (Fig 7). Heritiera has its lower leaf surfaces covered with scales for the same purpose.\n\nIn summary, this plant community is one of the most remarkable aggregations of unrelated families of plants in the world, which have developed in common a number of special characteristics such as modified roots for support and gaseous exchange, water conservation mechanisms, 'salt balance' mechanisms and a viviparous seedling habit.\n\nWhy are mangrove plants important?\n\nBecause of their relatively high natural productivity which may be more than twenty times that of the plankton of open ocean waters and five times that of the plankton of rich coastal waters, mangrove plants are able to support a large number and a wide variety of consumer animals. The falling leaves and other plant debris from the mangroves may either be eaten directly or (and this refers to the greater part) it is colonized by bacteria and fungi and partially decomposed before it becomes available to most marine animals. The leaf particles with their associated rich colonies of microorganisms are then eaten by small fish. Much of the leaf material itself is not digested but is passed back into the water where recolonization by microorganisms begins the cycle again. Eventually the very smallest particles (detritus) will be consumed by detritus feeding animals such as molluscs and crustaceans. At the same time algae will be feeding on the dissolved nutrients released, and they in turn form the diet for more consumers.\n\nThus, fish, shrimps and oysters all depend on the mangroves for their basic food supply. Man has learned to exploit this fact and the commercial rearing of all three groups of animals is common in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213593, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "160\n\nmaintaining high productivity as outlined previously. However, the mangroves are also very important as mud stabilizers. As the pioneers grow out onto the mud, the band of vegetation becomes broader and the rear becomes drier. Eventually new land is created, which can be used for agricultural purposes. They also play a role as an important protective barrier against destructive storm waves, thus reducing the risk of flooding.\n\nMan's impact on the mangrove\n\nThe most significant impact by man has been the drainage and reclamation of the mangroves to provide sites for settlement and agriculture. This century alone about 1700 hectares of mangroves have been converted into deep fish ponds and vegetable growing areas and many of these, more recently, have been converted into container storage facilities and other industrial purposes. Many of Hong Kong's mangrove stands have already been totally destroyed; Mai Po's mangroves still survive to give an impression of what Deep Bay, indeed much of Hong Kong's shoreline would have looked like because they have been protected since 1976 as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The effects of deep fish pond development, vegetable gardening, industrial usage and new town development can all now be seen in the Deep Bay area.\n\nThe likelihood of further major reclamation of Deep Bay for urban expansion poses new threats to the ecology of this mangrove area and to the life which it supports (Irving & Morton, 1988).\n\nHowever, at present, the biggest threat is pollution. The many streams and rivers that drain into Deep Bay carry an enormous load of agricultural, domestic and industrial waste. Increasing pollution loads have already been reflected in a changed use of the ponds in recent years. A marked decrease in shrimp harvest has led to the conversion of some gei wais and mangrove areas to freshwater ponds to protect them from marine pollution. If this trend continues, then extreme changes will result as more and more of the mangrove areas are turned into deep ponds and, as pollution has a greater effect on mudflat productivity, the whole area will eventually lose the ecological value which it now has as a multifaceted series of habitats supporting an enormous variety of flora and fauna. In particular, it will cease to be a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213700, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 53, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "24\n\nIt must be stressed that the figures as given in Tables 7 and 8 are very approximate. They probably under-estimate the numbers of deaths of very young infants. They are likely, therefore, to be conservative: the average age of death, shown on Tables 7 and 8 as 22/24, may well, in fact, have been as low as 18/20. It can, however, be accepted that the average age of death is unlikely to have been higher than 22/24.\n\nClearly these figures, because of the serious under-reporting of very young children, cannot be used to provide detailed statistics of infant mortality in the New Territories. They do, however, show that about a fifth at least of all children died before reaching school age, and that about half of all children died before reaching marriageable age. They demonstrate that infant mortality was a major social factor, and permit debate only on the detail of incidence.\n\nIt is worth noting some points disclosed by Tables 3-6. Table 5 shows a slight upturn in the population recorded in 1911 for both males and females at ages 60-65; this is clearly a reaction to those elderly villagers who claimed they were \"more than one cycle old,\" and who were consequently all entered as 61 years old. In 1921 this unthinking reaction was not followed: actual ages were identified and entered.\n\nBecause of the loss of Tsuen Wan district to Southern District, the 1921 figures for Northern District should have been very slightly lower than those for 1911. This is the case for both males and females older than about 50. Since it is this elderly section of the population which is the most sedentary, these figures are likely to be accurate. However, between the ages of 35 and 50, for both males and females, the 1921 records show higher populations for Northern District than in 1911. This can probably be ascribed in part to villagers being caught by the census when returning to worship at their ancestral graves during the Ching Ming Festival, as postulated by the 1921 Census officer, and in part to greater efforts being made in 1921 to capture the boat people. In addition, political troubles in the border area of China had caused large numbers of refugees to cross over into the New Territories in 1920. While most of these refugees had returned to China at the end of 1920, it is likely that some remained in the New Territories, to be caught by the enumerators in Northern District in 1921.\n\n57\n\nBetween the ages of 20 and 35, the 1911 figures for the Northern District are higher than the 1921 figures, as expected, but the very", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213701, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "25\n\n5%\n\nwide divergence where females are concerned cannot be due solely to the transfer of Tsuen Wan alone. This wide divergence can probably be ascribed to the large numbers of women busy in the fields during the 1921 Census period and thus being missed by the 1921 enumerators. The 1921 Census Officer, as noted above, remarked on the problems the peak agricultural season caused for the enumerators, who, clearly, were able to compel the presence of the heads of household, but not always the womenfolk of the family.\n\nThe higher numbers of females as compared with males recorded in both 1911 and 1921 (at ages above about 26 in 1911, and about 32 in 1921) can be ascribed to the temporary absence of many of the males in the City or abroad. As is to be expected, this feature is much less marked in 1921, because of the return of so many males for the Ching Ming Festival, and the greater effort made to record the boat-people, many of whom were prime-age males, whose families were resident outside the New Territories. The higher recorded figures for females at ages above 55 are more likely to be due to differential death-rates, with females living longer.\n\nSouthern District. An Immigrant, Urban Society\n\nWhile the censuses show a settled agricultural society in Northern District, in Southern District they show a society dominated by the land and floating populations of the market town seaports of Cheung Chau, Tai O, and Ping Chau, and marked by significant temporary immigration of young adult males.\n\nAs mentioned above, the census figures are problematic for Southern District. Because of differences in the treatment of New Kowloon, Tsuen Wan, and the floating population, only two tables provide fully usable data: the 1911 figures for the islands' land population, and the 1921 figures for the Southern District floating population. However, even though the series of usable figures is short, nonetheless they clearly show a society radically distinct from that of Northern District.\n\n00\n\nTable 9 shows the reported population figures for the 1911 land population of the islands. As in Northern District, the figures suggest under-reporting of infant children. At 35 births per thousand, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213710, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "It seems likely that the annual birth rate was about 140 males and the same number of females. This represents a figure of 37 births per thousand, higher than that estimated for the land population by the census officer. The recorded number of females aged below 5, even ignoring postnatal deaths, already represents a birth rate of over 30 per thousand, and this suggests that the birth rate among the islands boat-people must have been above 35 per thousand. Up to the age of about 12, the figures for males and females are very similar, and they are again for ages above 45, and even more for ages above 60. These figures must represent the settled, permanently resident floating population. Between the ages of 12 and 45, however, the recorded numbers of males greatly surpass those of females (by about 40% at about age 22).\n\nThere is a very slight change in the angle of curve of the female figures at about age 25, which may represent a very small influx of single women, but the figures recorded for females suggest a single, settled, population of females at all ages. The curve is generally coherent at all ages. This curve suggests the average age of death for boat people women was about 17-18. The recorded figures for females can be taken as accurate, and as descriptive of the settled Southern District boat people.\n\nAs with the 1911 land population figures, however, the males recorded must include a substantial temporarily immigrant adult male component. On the figures given, the average age of death for men was about 37, which is highly unlikely, unless large numbers of temporarily immigrant adult males are in question, many of whom would have left the area before death.\n\nThe average age of marriage recorded for the Southern District boat people in 1921 (about 21-22 for females, 26-27 for males) also suggests a significant number of temporarily resident immigrant adult males. This is discussed in greater detail below.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213969, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "Africa and South-east Asia to be suspicious of the pretensions of local leaders whose personal interests were not always easily identifiable with those of the common man—or, in their new surroundings, the worker in the plastics factory and his family. They had been conditioned by British policy and practice elsewhere to accept a goal of parliamentary democracy and self-determination as the norm; and while admitting that Hong Kong was, in the other cant phrase, “unique,” they saw no reason for it to be utterly different in ethos.\n\nSomeone who appreciated the subtle differences within colonies and between their officials was the last Colonial Service Governor, Sir David Clive Crosbie Trench GCMG MC. Trench had started his service in the Western Pacific, where as a District Officer in the Solomon Islands he had been a wartime \"coastwatcher\" in the mountains, reporting on Japanese activity, and had earned a military decoration during the Allies' reoccupation. He was one of the few Administrative Officers to benefit from the old Colonial Office's unspoken \"seven year rule.\" Under this, those who had spent that length of time in the supposedly enervating climate and mores of the Pacific should be sent to more politically and mentally bracing parts of the empire, the better to come back refreshed when more senior (determined Resident Commissioners in the Western Pacific, who thought seven years only just enough to train their juniors in the proper ways, usually managed to circumvent this best-laid plan.) Trench came to Hong Kong after the war, where he acquired a strong and popular reputation, notably in the Labour Department, as reorganiser of the Fire Brigade and as Deputy Colonial Secretary (DCS). It was no surprise when he went back to the Western Pacific as High Commissioner; there he presided over the creation for the egalitarian Melanesian society in the Solomon Islands of a novel democratic form of government based, via a constitution already adapted for Ceylon, on the pre-war London County Council, with committees instead of ministers (some of whose chairmen, however, inevitably assumed ministerial pretensions.) After three years, he returned to Hong Kong as Governor in 1964.\n\nBefore he had left, Trench had naturally always shown greater sympathy with and understanding of the \"interlopers,\" as the aforesaid subset was vulgarly known, than did some of his senior colleagues. Although relations with a governor were inevitably more remote than those with a senior secretariat officer had been, he contrived not to be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213972, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "6\n\nordinary people could play a greater part in their own local affairs without \"rocking the boat,\" and so strengthen what was still in the 1960s a nebulous sense of identity with Hong Kong as something more than a dependent entrepôt.\n\nBill Dickinson had come to Hong Kong from West Africa as a man of good report with capacity for high office, widely experienced in local government and as right-hand man to the deputy governor of the Gold Coast (now Ghana). It may be thought that he made insufficient effort to affect the outward manners of a society that regarded itself as more sophisticated than an officer who preferred to wear khaki shorts in summer; he was generally seen as a stranger from a dark continent, and though well-liked did not move in élite circles. As Clerk of Councils and a Principal Assistant Colonial Secretary, he had held positions which gave knowledge but little power. Sir David Trench found in him an appropriate officer to assist in solving his dilemma. On 29 April 1966, he appointed Dickinson to chair a working party with the following (typically for Hong Kong detailed) terms of reference:\n\nTo explore and advise on practicable alternatives for the development of an effective and convenient system of local administration in Hong Kong which will take account of the size and complexity of the existing Urban Areas, the planned creation of new towns in the New Territories, and the different stages and development in the rural areas, with particular regard to—\n\n(a) the types of local authority which might be established and the criteria which might govern their establishment;\n\n(b) their possible composition, and the various methods of selection and tenure of office of members which might be considered;\n\n(c) the powers and functions they might have;\n\n(d) possible sources of revenue and financial powers;\n\n(e) their staff and the means by which their functions might be carried out;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213989, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "24\n\nTools\n\nThe tools used by bamboo scaffolders are simple, few in number and have changed but little over centuries. They comprise a timber bow (frame) saw, about 30 inches long, with a steel blade and a cord, made up of several strands, stretched along the back of the saw. A piece of timber, about four inches long, is inserted in the strands of the cord. This is turned around so the cord is twisted, tightened and thus shortened. As a result, the blade becomes taut. The bowsaw is used to cut bamboo to appropriate lengths. Other tools include a rule, a pair of snips to cut wire used to secure the scaffolding to a building, such as for cantilever scaffolding. Wire is also used, for additional strength to fasten China Fir poles together. A folding knife with a hooked end, to cut through lashings when dismantling scaffolding, is also used by scaffolders. The hook is employed to unravel knots. A length of rope is used to hoist lengths of bamboo up to the upper floors of a building. A narrow-bladed spade is sometimes used when uprights are sunk into soil.\n\nTypes of scaffolding\n\n20\n\nIn addition to ordinary scaffolding forming working platforms for a building, bamboo may also be used for a variety of other purposes. For example, to construct a frame for a 'matshed' in which to perform Chinese opera (see Plate 5). The frame for the stage inside the matshed will also be fashioned out of bamboo. Years ago the matshed would have been 'clad' with palm leaves, canvas or rattan mats. Today, thin steel sheets are normally used with their greater fire-resisting qualities.\n\n21\n\nBamboo may also be used to form raking or flying shoring for strutting up a building which is in danger of collapse. In addition, bamboo may be used for constructing ladders or trestles, to build a spectators' stand at a public function, or to construct a pai lau, a celebratory archway. Sometimes bamboo is used to form a frame on which to mount fireworks or it can be used to fashion a screen to protect property when blasting of rocks is carried out.\n\nA variety of types of scaffolding are used to form working platforms. These include a cantilever ('truss-out' or 'flying' scaffold, fei paan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214009, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "44\n\nthe news to Tsung-pao.\n\nAt this point the commander of the Liao army arrogantly demanded that the Sung forces surrender. Miss Mu, angered by the enemy commander's comment about the Sung general dallying with her and being afraid to fight, fired a single arrow which took the helmet off the enemy commander's head. She then fired a second arrow at his left eye but he had already turned to flee and it struck his armour instead. Her popularity and prestige soared and the Liao Khitan forces' morale plummeted. Miss Mu led her force to victory whilst Yang the Fifth killed one of the Liao commanders and Yang Tsung-pao another, leading their forces in a rolling battle which lasted all of twenty-four hours. The defeated Liao Khitan fled, broken, back north leaving the field to the Sung. Peace reigned for the first time for decades and lasted for the following ten years.\n\nFinally, we have the tales told in temples, individual stories told not only by temple custodians and devotees about members of the Yang family with the father, Yang Yeh, the main character, but also by professional tea-house story tellers. One might expect versions of the lives of the Yang family as related by temple staff and devotees would reflect the religious traditional tales of story tellers and theatrical stories. As will be seen this is not always so.\n\nYang Yeh, his wife, daughters and sons were deified for their heroism and loyalty to the Sung dynasty. Images of Yang Yeh, alone or with his wife, the Lady Yü, Yü Lao T'ai-chun, also known as Yang Ling-p'o, and with one or more of his seven [eight] sons, can be seen in two temples near the Great Wall in northern China as well as on Fukienese community altars in Taiwan and South-east Asia. Yang Yeh, when portrayed on altars, is also known as The Holy Prince of the Yang Family 楊老令公.\n\nIn the majority of Singaporean and Taiwanese temples the staff were quite clear in their own minds that the two major deities of the cult are Yang Yeh, the powerful general and father of the family, and his Fifth Son. Confusion over definitive identifications of images on altars has arisen out of this almost universal belief. The reason for the popularity in temples of the Fifth Son, rather than the greater hero, the Sixth Son, is almost certainly due to the Fifth's religious background.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214059, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "94\n\nThe tunnel was driven at a rate of about 18 metres/week through granite - surprisingly the most serious problems encountered appear to have concerned the labour, rather than the tunnelling itself, on account of fung shui difficulties and the prevalence of malaria.\n\nTo finalise the KCR project, an 11.5km-long narrow-gauge (600mm) branch line was constructed in 1911-1912 from Fan Ling to Sha Tau Kok on the border, mainly using track and plant which had been utilized in connection with the building of the Beacon Hill Tunnel, and operated until 1928. The civil engineering work was relatively simple, the deepest cutting and embankments being about 5 metres. For most of the route the railway shared bridges with the adjacent road but beyond Wo Hang some six bridges and numerous culverts needed to be built.\n\nWater Supply\n\nThe original inhabitants and new settlers in 1841 obtained their water supply from hillside streams. To augment these sources the first five wells for the city water supply were sunk in 1851. In 1859, the Government realised that the old haphazard supply system was totally inadequate and, following a prize competition for the best plan, implemented a small reservoir scheme in the Pok Fu Lam valley, the dam being little more than a stream intake, from which water was conveyed in 1863 through a 250mm cast-iron pipe to tanks above the city of Victoria.\n\nFrom that time the history of Hong Kong's waterworks was a continual struggle to catch up with the needs of an ever-increasing population and virtually never succeeded until recent years (when the Territory's water shortfall was imported from China). The original Pok Fu Lam scheme was soon scrapped and a new reservoir, with its 11m-high earth dam and a much greater capacity (300 million litres), was completed further upstream in 1871 when the population had risen to about 125,000. The reconstruction of the supply conduit, by means of a brick culvert along the 150m contour (Pok Fu Lam and Conduit Roads), became operational in 1877.\n\nThe first stage of the Tai Tam scheme, the principal feature being a 40m-high masonry-faced rubble concrete dam, was completed in 1889", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214113, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "150\n\neve of the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years visits have also been paid to such destinations as Taiwan, Vietnam and various parts of China.\n\nBefore looking in greater detail at what the Hong Kong Branch (RASHKB) does, let us review briefly the history of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS 1979).\n\nHistory\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in London in 1823, and it received its Charter of Incorporation as a Royal Society the following year. It is the oldest and most important learned society of its kind in Europe, and it is the doyen of societies promoting the study of Asia. Its membership has included generations of eminent scholars and explorers with a deep understanding of the East.\n\nA large part of the Society's work has, however, always been carried out through its branches and affiliated societies. Branches were formed in such places as Bombay and Madras about 1838, and in Ceylon in 1845. The Hong Kong Branch followed in 1847, the North China Branch at Shanghai in 1857, the Japanese in 1875, the Malayan in 1878 and the Korean in 1900 (RAS1979: 15). Such countries as Japan and Korea were never, of course, part of the British Empire, and, in any case, British territory today is reduced to a few small pink dots on the map; such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Gibraltar. Thus the RAS can now be thought of, very much, as an international organisation rather than as being purely British.\n\nAlthough the Hong Kong Branch was first established in 1847, it ran into difficulties and, consequently, ceased to exist after the end of 1859. It was, nevertheless, resuscitated a century later (Hayes 1997: 129).\n\nAchievements\n\nGoing back to the middle of the last century, although the Branch was comparatively short-lived, it was nonetheless productive. With its emphasis on practical projects one of the most conspicuous notches in its belt must have been the proposal that a piece of land be requested", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214197, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "18\n\npeople believe, and there appears to be truth in this (with greater use being made of the Chinese language since the Handover), that Hong Kong as a city-state is becoming more Chinese. Although this can affect the development of Hong Kong humour it is expected to be more than offset by globalisation and the world-wide effects of radio, television, the Internet and information technology.\n\nThe late Lin Yutang postulated that a Chinese believes, while getting in a few puffs while standing in front of a no-smoking sign, that the world is a stage where drama and high comedy abound. Life is a huge farce and one must not take matters too seriously, whether they be government reforms or funerals (Lin, 1936:65). The latter have a certain amount of 'gaiety' about them. Sending a person on his or her last journey to confront the final mystery of life should, it is believed, be expensive. The Chinese consider only Europeans (Lin insists) take funerals seriously and try to make them solemn affairs. What is wrong at a funeral in getting a few words across to a pal, about horse racing or morning walks, when you have not seen him for a long time? The man who takes life too seriously and obeys all the rules (according to Lin), and keeps off the grass when nobody is looking, appears ridiculous. In addition Chinese humour often takes a tolerant view of vice and evil. Instead of condemning them outright why not make fun of them? Lin Yutang believed humour could transcend cynicism and be used for other and better purposes than reconciling oneself to one's down-trodden position.\n\nAccording to Lin Yutang (1936:64), first-class humour is to be found in the Confucian Analects. \"After all, Confucius is quoted as having said, because Tsai Yu napped during the day:\n\nRotten wood cannot be carved nor a wall of dried dung trowelled. How would I rebuke him?\n\nA saying like that is always good for a chuckle.\n\nMuch humour is to be found in Ming dynasty novels, in Hong Kong's New Territories' folk songs (largely forgotten except among the elderly), and in the poetry of the drunkard, Li Po (alias Li T'ai-po), who lived in the eighth century. He made much of the solace and lib-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214408, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 266, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "232\n\nnext morning the case came before our enlightened Assistant Magistrate, who with the discretion and sense of justice characteristic of him, instead of incarcerating the defendant for ten days on bread and water, recommended settling the matter amicably and hinted at five dollars being a satisfactory recompense to the plaintiff; but whether the defendant followed this advice or not - I have not been informed. (The China Mail, No 558, the 25 Oct. 1855).\n\nHong Kong is not actually a place of trade with China, but merchants and agents trading in Canton, in Shanghai and in other Chinese ports, which are open to Europeans, live here. That is why the local anchorage (harbour) is very busy: during the whole course of my two month stay, there were always up to sixty or more merchant vessels there, one or two changing every day. The grocery and chandlery trade is all in the hands of the Chinese. With the exception of two or three large stores designated strictly for incoming vessels and filled with all that is necessary for the needs and even some whims of the seamen, all the rest belong to Chinese. The richest Chinese merchant is extremely temperate in his way of life: a few bowls of rice make up his main food, he is clothed in calico or linen - unpretentiously; and that is why even when selling things he is satisfied with low returns; he even sells European things cheaper, than the European, who needs greater profits for his table, his attire and his abode.\n\nPiece payment is, perhaps, nowhere in the world as cheap as in China. For this reason all their crafted goods are particularly well finished, even display signs of overwork; but elegance perhaps somehow slips through accidentally, in spite of the will of the worker. And indeed for an object to be sold well, it is essential, that it displays in itself signs of much labour spent on it. Whereas we, on looking at an object, say: “how lovely! how exquisite!\" the best praise for a Chinese is yu gup fu i.e. a lot of time and work has gone into this! And so in all these curio shops you find objects carved out of ivory: spheres revolving one in another, chess pieces, fans etc., also lacquer boxes, decorated with the finest of designs. This is even more noticeable in their picture shops, of which there are up to five in Canton, if not more. With them, painting is reduced to the level of a craft, or better put does not rise to the level of an art. And certainly, the technical side of it almost reaches perfection: the eye can barely follow the brushes, placed between all the fingers of the hand, and the way, one after the other, they", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214411, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 269, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "235\n\nrecently went to Siam, where he successfully concluded a trade treaty, and was now preparing for publication an account of the Siamese kingdom. His son has assembled a fine collection of insects of the local area and continues to add to it. Dr. Harland has undertaken to compile a complete fauna of Hong Kong, while Dr. Lorraine has a large collection of shells, gathered by him during his travels in America and India. Mr. Wade, the Chinese Secretary, has an impressive Chinese library and is involved in the study of the history of the reigning Chinese dynasty and informed me of a plan he had to compile a Chinese dictionary; only this plan is so immense, that one man would hardly be able to realize it. Well, that is all I know about the learned pursuits of certain individuals, living in Hong Kong. Much, undoubtedly, is undertaken in the privacy of a study and will only become known on completion. I have not said anything of the labours of missionaries: but they, on the whole, don't like to talk about their affairs. I only know, that of those living in Hong Kong many intensively study the Chinese language, not only themselves but their wives too, and I think that one can expect finer seedlings from the preaching of the latter by reason of the greater receptivity of the female nature.\n\nAs for literary works, apart from several translations of holy books, every year treatises appear in Chinese and not only theological treatises, but others, which reveal to the Chinese much useful European knowledge and the latest inventions. Perhaps some of these treatises came from the pen of one of the Hong Kong missionaries. One of them, Mr. LOBSCHEID, is constantly within the Chinese border, about fifteen miles from Hong Kong, where he is engaged in practising medicine, and to those that come to him for cures from their bodily ills, he doesn't fail to point out their spiritual infirmities as well, and the only way to rid themselves of them. I had already met him in Japan, when he was on the American ship Pageton, and now saw him again in Hong Kong, where he had come for a short time. I received from him as a gift the Japanese translation of several books of the New Testament, done by whom I don't know, but as far as I do know, not quite comprehensible to the Japanese. And so, hardly had the Japanese opened a number of their ports to foreigners before the missionaries had prepared the most essential material for their conversion. One cannot demand perfection at the first attempt: it is sufficient to make some sort of inroad; in time it will become more and more even, and improved.\n\nTo the charitable organizations of the town belong the hospital", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214419, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 277, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "243\n\none so pretty!\" said my friend. \"That's dear,\" I remarked. \"Two shillings,\" she repeated flatly. \"You can't be from here, because you're too white. Where are you from? What's your name?\" probed P., trying to move nearer to her. \"I'm from Macau; my name is Etola,\" she answered in English, slurring over a few syllables as is the Chinese habit. \"Two shillings,\" she added later, after a pause. \"How pretty you are!\" continued my companion. \"Show me your hand, tell me how old you are. Who do you like better: us, the English or the Chinese?\" \"Two shillings,\" She replied. We drew up to the frigate; my companion took her hand, while I was already on the ship's ladder. \"Talk to me, Etola,\" he said to her, holding her hand. She remained silent. \"Tell me what you...\" \"Two shillings,\" she repeated. I with a laugh, and he with a sigh, paid the money and went to our separate cabins.\n\nHere, as in England and in the Cape, we were granted free entry into the club. The club is a type of superlative palace: its founders have spared no expense, to impart to the club the same opulence that is customary in London clubs. A number of big halls with windows facing the bay, a verandah, fireplaces, windows set in marble; bronze and crystal everywhere; excellent mirrors, elegant furniture - everything brought from England. But - alas! The halls remain empty; you'll have trouble attracting the attention of a sleepy Chinese man-servant, and then you'll order dinner and pay three times what it costs right nearby, in the tavern. The club is close to bankruptcy. The Europeans sit in their own corners for the greater part of the day, and in the evening prefer to gather in family circles - and so the club fails. But what a delight it is to relax on that verandah in the early evening, when the cool night air takes the place of the intense heat.\n\nAt six o'clock in the evening the whole population pours out of doors, along the seashore, along the avenue. Officers on foot and on horseback, business men, ladies make their appearance. On a meadow, near the Governor's house, music is playing. Not far from there, on a hill, in a stone house, lives the General commanding the local detachment, and right nearby a building, something like a monastery, houses an Italian bishop with a few monks.\n\nOur people left for Canton, at which time I was lying in a fever and half sleeping heard the launch being lowered. I was awakened by a crash of thunder; a storm had erupted just at the moment of their leaving.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214428, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 286, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "252\n\nSearchlight Emplacements\n\nInside the satellite earth station there is a steep flight of steps from an old generator house down a very rugged and precipitous ravine to a concrete footpath which girdles the south-eastern coast of the peninsula. Remains of old concrete posts at regular intervals suggest a security fence existed at one time alongside the footpath. About halfway along the footpath, situated on a ledge of the cliff, stands a small concrete structure with a semi-circular bow-shaped front and a large open embrasure facing in an easterly direction. This shelter housed one of the coast artillery searchlights for the battery. The searchlight was protected by steel shutters when not in use. The rear part of the shelter housed either a small generator or a series of accumulator batteries to provide the electricity supply to power the searchlight. A second searchlight emplacement can be found further along the footpath facing in a south-easterly direction.\n\nSituated higher up the cliff above the second searchlight emplacement is the searchlight command post. This consists of a two-tiered structure connected by an internal flight of steps. The same standard design as the searchlight emplacement has been used for each tier, the only modification being to increase the height of the parapet wall, which reduces the size of the embrasure opening but still allows observation. This is where the searchlight directing officer and battery observers would have been stationed. Adjacent to the searchlight command post is a small concrete shelter probably used as an off-duty rest room by the searchlight operators and observers working shifts or watches.\n\nDefence electric lights or projectors could be used in either a searchlight role, sweeping across the sea in front of the emplacement picking out and following hostile targets for the gunners to engage, or as a fixed illumination covering constantly a body of water through which enemy ships might pass. The beams could be adjusted to narrow for long range or wide for shorter range, but with a greater area of coverage. Sometimes a system of 'sentry' and 'sweeper' beams would be used. Two lights situated some distance apart would remain in the same position as sentry beams. The light operators would watch for enemy ships passing through their beams, and when something was seen, a third searchlight, the 'sweeper,' would pick up the ship and illuminate it for the guns. Sweepers would also light up at irregular times, make", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214478, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 336, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "ARNOLD GRAHAM 1905 - 1996\n\nDAN WATERS\n\n'No Names, No Packdrill, No Hard Words, No Soft Drinks'\n\n305\n\nBefore Arnold Graham left Hong Kong for New Zealand in 1994, he donated 515 books to our Branch library. Members of our Society remain grateful to Mr Graham for his generosity.\n\nIn late August 1996 his daughter, Mrs Rothay Woodcock, wrote to the Royal Asiatic Society to say her Father was ... just too tired to carry on any longer he literally just went to sleep.' His acute wit\n\n*\n\nremained with him to the end. He was born in Carlisle in 1905 and sailed for Shanghai in 1928. Like many Shanghailanders, in order to complete his full and interesting life, he was forced, when the People's Republic Government came to power in China, to move to Hong Kong in the early 1950s. There, he wrote letters to the Editor of the South China Morning Post under the pseudonym of 'Ancient Gwailo' (his own initials were also ‘A. G.').\n\nIn Hong Kong, as in Shanghai, he worked for the Gas Company and, later, as office manager for Binnie and Partners, civil engineers, on schemes like the Sek Pik Reservoir.\n\nAlthough he had spent the greater part of his life in cities, he always maintained the best place to find God is in a garden. As his daughter wrote, 'It is a pity he won't see the new spring leaves coming out on the trees backgrounding his garden or go down to sit by the sea again'\n\n+\n\nLater Mrs Woodcock wrote to ask if our Branch would like to have some of her father's photographs, maps and papers.\n\nIt is the end of an era. Today, few Shanghailanders (expatriates who lived for many years in Shanghai) are still with us. Sorting out the contents of the cardboard box that his daughter sent to our Branch I am hesitant. It is like intruding into someone's private life. There is a news-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214659, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "38\n\nThe Li clan also had a range of ancestral trusts. In the absence of any Tsuk Po, however, it is never very clear whether a particular trust is a \"family trust\" or a genuine ancestral trust. The two main trusts, however, the Shing Kwai Tso (named from the Founding Ancestor - the transliteration should be Shing Kai, rather than Shing Kwai), and the Luk Wa Tso (this was most likely named from the six descent lines of the clan, and thus probably equated in membership with the Shing Kwai Tso), both had substantial land-holdings (1.09 acres and 1.43 acres respectively), as had also the Ching Wun Tso (0.93 acres): this latter Tso was named from the pivotal ancestor of the largest of the clan descent lines. All three of these Tso had as their trustee Li Lai-ting, who was, in 1902, clearly the dominant elder of the Li clan. Other trusts were probably family trusts, as for instance the Kwan Fong Tso (0.24 acres), also with Li Lai-ting as trustee, but probably in this case as the manager of his own family estates. Other Li clan trusts, including the Sz Fo Tso (“Four “Fo” Ancestors”), Sz Cheung Tso (\"Four \"Cheung\" Ancestors\"), Sz Kwong Tso (\"Four \"Kwong\" Ancestors\"), and Sz Pin Tso (“Four “Pin\" Ancestors\") were probably vehicles for the holding of land used to provide income for rituals and grave-maintenance - none of these trusts were very wealthy (0.43 acres, 0.09 acres, 0.19 acres, and 0.30 acres respectively, with a further 0.13 acres owned jointly by the Sz Pin and Sz Kwong Tso). Li Lai-ting was trustee for the Sz Pin Tso, which must have been the trust of his own sub-descent line.\n\nIn general, the Li clan of Nga Tsin Wai had 5.70 acres held in trust, 28.12% of their total holdings of 20.21 acres, much the same percentage as the 28.92% held by Ng clan trusts. The land-holdings of the Lis averaged 0.77 acres per recorded house-owning household, only a little above half of the 1.31 acres per recorded house-owning households of the Ngs. This, again, illustrates the greater prosperity of the Ngs in 1902.\n\nWithin the Li clan there was much the same range of wealth as in the Ngs, although there were fewer joint households. Land-holdings include, as in the case of the Ngs, some households with only houses recorded (Li In-ting, Li Kong-fuk, Li Tso), or else with only tiny plots of arable land (Li Kam-tsing, 0.09 acres; Li Yung-wan, 0.04 acres), or else with just house property and a vegetable garden (Li Tin, 2 houses within the walls and 0.08 acres; Li Kun-sang, 1 house within the walls", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214705, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "84\n\nNevertheless tun fu may be seen as an extension of feng shui, although the latter is riteless whereas the rites of tun fu are complicated as can be seen from this paper. Feng shui is sometimes inadequately called 'Chinese geomancy', and the home, the workplace and the grave are designed so that they 'reconcile' with environmental currents and cosmic principles. And when the Author has told Chinese friends that there are aspects of feng shui that he believes in they have frequently retorted that you cannot be selective and just pick what you like as in a supermarket. You either believe in it in its entirety or not at all. But with much of the doctrine being considered by some Westerners as little more than superstition, total acceptance is not always easy for the average Caucasian. One person's superstition can indeed sometimes be another person's religion.\n\nThe Pat Heung ceremony\n\nThis paper concentrates on the large tun fu ceremony that was held in the district known as Pat Heung, which is situated at the eastern end of the Kam Tin--Pat Heung Valley.3 This lies nearly in the middle of the New Territories and is enclosed by steep hills on its northern, southern and eastern sides (Hong Kong Government; 1960, 170). To give an idea how rural it was until comparatively recently, in 1965 it was reported that a tiger had been sighted in the Pat Heung district (South China Morning Post, 1965). The police conducted a search but failed to find it. Approximately 90 per cent of the population in Pat Heung are of Hakka stock and the remainder are Punti, although today, only the elderly speak Hakka. The people have mixed surnames unlike many old, single family-name villages in the New Territories although nowadays, with greater social mobility, people with other surnames have not infrequently moved into them in varying numbers. Freedman writes that possibly tun fu rites were originally Hakka but they were adopted by the Cantonese (1979, 207). I have not seen any evidence to support this view nor does he appear to provide any sources supporting this statement.\n\nThe reason this large tun fu ceremony was held in the Pat Heung district, in 1999, was because a tunnel (at the time of writing) is being cut through the mountain for a new railway line. This necessitated moving family graves. It is understood the Government paid Pat Heung District village committees HK$600,000 to meet expenses for the holding\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214711, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 126, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "90\n\ntemples. Nevertheless, in the case of the Pat Heung tun fu ceremony, the party did go into the temple as the reader saw, but only briefly to pay respects to the gods.\n\nAs another example, again in a predominantly Hakka community at Tai Wo Village, also in Pat Heung district, another tun fu ceremony took place on Wednesday 14 April, 1999, near an earth god shrine again close to a banyan tree. The Author attended. This time it was conducted by a single, part-time, feng shui master (not by a Taoist priest) who did not really look the part in his black, Chinese jacket, jeans and the ubiquitous sports shoes. He lives in a village on Tai Mo Shan. However, in this case, a native Cantonese speaker remarked he could understand most of what the officiating person was chanting. The Author, too, could understand a certain amount. A short walk followed this one-hour long ceremony, with the feng shui master leading the party over to the well to offer up prayers to its god. The village has had mains water for twenty years or so. Obviously, in the past, it was important to pay respects to the well god. Yet the practice continues. Precautions need to be taken to safeguard this valuable commodity, understandably, whether the supply is from a well or from the mains.\n\nEveryone present at this Tai Wo ceremony was given a red lai shi, lucky envelope containing $20, which apparently came from the coffers of the village. This appeared not to be too affluent. One wondered at the time, how many onlookers felt great and mysterious things were happening during this ceremony? It was, nevertheless, all followed by a pleasant picnic-style lunch under the banyan. Again, all present ate roast pork, which had previously been offered up to the gods. A government officer informed the Author that the villagers were pleased he was present, taking an interest in their tun fu ceremony. This pleasure appeared genuine. Certainly, everyone was very friendly, including the feng shui master who, in this case, willingly answered the Author's questions without any hint that he wanted to keep the profession a closed shop.\n\nNot only with tun fu but with Christianity, too, different denominations' beliefs and practices vary, sometimes markedly. Even within the Church of England with its high church and low church, and from one clergyman to another - with their different leanings, political or otherwise, variations can be considerable, not to mention far greater", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214718, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "97\n\nin tun fu and other religious ceremonies. 'It is not really worth making a fuss about and upsetting the system', seemed to sum it all up.\n\nBut by comparison, even if western women would probably not accept a 'second-class citizen' situation in a similar way, nevertheless it should be remembered that only men are allowed, still, to become Catholic priests. Women have however been accepted, in a number of cases not so long ago, as clerics into the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church. Again showing leanings towards men, even in the West, the Author recalls his 90-year old English mother saying, in the 1980s, \"It's a pity Mrs Thatcher (the then Prime Minister of Britain) isn't a man. People would respect her more.”\n\nWill tun fu die out?\n\nWith the population of Hong Kong expected to reach somewhere in the region of eight-and-a-half million by the year 2010, this can only mean additional new towns and greater urbanisation in the New Territories. Such growth must bring drastic changes in lifestyles as has happened in the past. Western style bars, karaoke and other hostess services are now not uncommon in the Yuen Long and Kam Tin area, signifying the move towards globalisation (Chu; 1999)(Yu; 1999). In addition, what sociological changes will Route Three Highway, the West Rail Link and a possible new town close by bring to the district (Shum; 1996, 41)?\n\nBut in spite of inevitable changes, Sheung Tsuen, where the main Pat Heung tun fu ceremony that the Author attended was held, is still a pleasant, peaceful village. In spite of paddy fields having long disappeared and derelict cars being dumped together with other eyesores, there is still a country atmosphere. The Koel and other birds call from atop camphor and banyan trees. To an observant person, the number of tun fu ceremonies held in the New Territories still does not appear to be exceedingly small. But with the continuing rapid increase in population and concomitant developments, they are likely to become endangered, although the custom is likely to be around, in smaller numbers, for some time to come.\n\nConclusions\n\nTun fu ceremonies are held because a previously quiet area of the countryside and its feng shui are threatened. Perhaps a hill in which the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214755, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "134\n\nPublishing (HK) Co, Ltd, 1993. (Chinese publication)\n\n* Van Creveld, M. Fighting Power: German and US Army Performance, 1939-1945, 1982, Chinese translation by Rye Field Publishing, Taipei, 1999. (Chinese publication)\n\nVincent, C. No Reason Why: the Canadian Hong Kong Tragedy: an examination, Ontario, Canadian Wings Inc., 1981.\n\nWan, T.K.G. Peace Memorial at Devil's Peak, unpublished B.A. thesis, Hong Kong, Department of Architecture, University of Hong Kong, 1999.\n\nWard, I. Sui Geng: the Hong Kong Marine Police 1841-1950, Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1991.\n\nWelsh, F. A History of Hong Kong, London, Harper Collins, 1997.\n\nWong, N.L. Hong Kong: Past and Present, Hong Kong, 1992. (Chinese publication)\n\nWright-Nooth, G. Prisoner of the Turnip Heads: the Fall of Hong Kong and Imprisonment by the Japanese, London, Cassell, 1994.\n\nYip, T.W. ed. A History of the Fall of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Wide Angle Press Ltd, 1982, (Chinese publication)\n\nYuen, K.P. A Brief History of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Mid Stream Publishing, 1988. (Chinese publication)\n\nNOTES\n\n2\n\n'Though some veterans may believe that the new government in Hong Kong will remove every object which serves as a reminder of the colonial history of Hong Kong. For instance, see Neillands (1996): 600-601.\n\nFor an excellent succinct account of the Battle and description of its sites, see Ko and Wordie (1996). For greater details from official sources, see \"Operations in Hong Kong from 8th to 25th December, 1941\", Despatch submitted to the Secretary of State for War by Major-General G.M. Maltby, London Gazette:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214866, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 281, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "249\n\nSociety. For instance, one-third of the history advisers of the Department are members of the Society, and under the Society is a committee set up to assist and advise the Antiquities and Monuments Office on the grading of historical buildings. We are indeed very much obliged for the Society's unfailing support and contribution to our development and provision of quality services to the public.\n\n\"Once you have the sprouts you can expect them to grow\". It is obvious that the efforts of the Society have come to fruition. With its solid foundation and enthusiastic members, I am sure that the Royal Asiatic Society will make even greater achievements in future. I earnestly look forward to our enhanced co-operation in the years to come in fostering the public's interest in the history and culture of Hong Kong. As Christmas is approaching, I take this opportunity to wish you all a merry Christmas and happy New Year. Thank you.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214934, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 30, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "The above activities need arranging and it is good to report that the well-known discerning committee members, whose addresses, telephone numbers and e-mails are attached, play a vital part in bringing us all together. There have been two changes in the committee since last year. Mrs. Julie Barry has decided that she can no longer continue as treasurer and membership secretary. Julie was very instrumental in helping to set up the Friends three years ago and for this we are very grateful. Mr. Roger Chandler has bravely taken on this mantle. The Friends have not in the past had an official secretary and it is a pleasure that Mr. Paul Boulding has been persuaded to do this. No report, however, can be complete without recording the Friends' sincere thanks to Mrs. Rosemary Lee and Mrs. Anita Wilson for the way they help to arrange activities and prepare the newsletter.\n\nThe future of the Friends looks promising. Financially we are in the black and we number at present around 70 members. We would number more if all paid their annual subscription! In the more immediate future, there is still the possibility of visiting Chinese war graves in Northern France. We also look forward to our own annual general meeting on 26 May at SOAS when we will have the opportunity of having a talk by Mr. Anthony Lawrence, who needs little introduction to all members and friends. In the summer we will be fortunate to have Dr. Patrick Hase to lead us on an expedition to the South Coast area based around Salisbury where there are reported to be considerable number of Chinese agricultural implements in the (Salisbury) museum. If any Hong Kong members are in the U.K. for any of these events do please get in touch with any member of the committee and join us.\n\nI cannot close this report without a note of sincere regret on the standing down of our President Dr. Dan Waters. The society has flourished to greater heights and influence, and from the U.K. we can only admire what he has been able to achieve through his own expertise. We wish him all the best in his \"retirement.\" At the same time we welcome his successor, Dr. Patrick Hase, and are confident that the society will continue to be in good hands.\n\nDAVID GILKES, Chairman\n\n28 February 2001\n\nxxix\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214963, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 59, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "14\n\n4) Had Commissioner Lin adopted less drastic measures in suppressing the opium trade? A difficult course to predict. However, knowing Elliot's repugnance of the opium trade, it is possible the two might have joined forces in fighting the infamous trade. It was Lin's methods, in particular laying siege to the foreign factories, that alienated Elliot's respect, not the end he sought to gain by adopting them.\n\n5) If China had suddenly developed a strong interest in British goods? Tin, wool, and cotton were imported from Britain, but not in sufficient quantities to balance the export of tea. A strong public opinion against opium had been building up in Britain. A greater demand for British goods might have shifted the British official position from laissez faire to oppose opium, dealing a serious blow to the opium trade.\n\nNo doubt, many other alternative courses of history can be suggested, but the few above show how the two addictions—to opium and tea—had determined the course of history of that period and region, and how easily that course might have been altered, preventing the conflict, and possibly subsequent imperialist policy of western nations in China.\n\nConclusion\n\nOf all the foods, solid or liquid, tea has had great influence over the centuries around the world. It has played a part in history, medicine, politics, manners and customs. British interests in the 19th century kept the opium supply line open and the manufacture of opium in India solvent in order to pay for China's tea. Britain went to war with China to protect those interests. In this sense the war was also the Tea War. When Sir George Staunton, an authority on Chinese-British relations and a member of Macartney's mission to China in 1793 (aged 15, he went as a page-boy), declared in Parliament: 'If there had been no opium, there had been no war,' he might well have added: \"And if there had been no tea, there had been no war.\"\n\nSELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nALLEN, N.:\n\nThe Opium Trade, Lowell (2nd Edition), U.S.A., 1983.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215004, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 100, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "56\n\nSpecial envelopes were printed for use by the CLC with a central red band and black printing in English, French and Chinese. In France this mail was posted in special boxes and transported by despatch riders to and from Noyelles. Mail between CLC companies in France did not require stamps or special envelopes.\n\nThe Imperial War Museum also holds two notebooks, written in literary Chinese, which may have been compiled by a clerk or labourer in his leisure time. There are random jottings with notes on, amongst other topics, the ancient political system in China, moral precepts, quotations from Chinese poets, lists of 95 individuals' names and places of birth, and also three letters.\n\nThese letters reveal the feelings of an ordinary man, rural and urban labourers, and his feelings for others. The first letter is addressed to the Kaiser and is a petition to end the war. It was written by 'Spiritual Man Yuan Chun'.\n\nTo the Great Emperor of the German Empire.\n\nThe war in Europe is a matter that does not concern us, the Chinese people, and as Your Majesty knows the world is full of people with greater talents than we have.\n\nHowever, as the ancients have said, a model emperor would be a brave warrior and merciful; however, if one loves war for its own sake and treats human lives as blades of grass, you will invoke the anger of the gods.\n\nWe Chinese came to Europe as neutrals, our aim is to make a paltry living; however, the war made our journey to Europe somewhat less than peaceful.\n\nAn examination of the world situation now shows that within the universe we are all one family, and a virtuous ruler would seize this opportunity to put righteousness before profit, to follow the will of the gods and the wishes of men, to stop the evil of the world and together with other nations create a new world. A virtuous ruler's name will be remembered for ten thousand generations, so why not halt your troops and select", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215104, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 200, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "157\n\nBut First, the Story of the Rebellion.\n\nTang Ming Huang, or Xuan Zong, the sixth emperor of the Tang dynasty, who reigned between AD 713-756, became infatuated by Yang Yuhuan, the consort of his son, Prince Shou, and caused her notionally to enter a Daoist nunnery. She soon became the favourite concubine of the emperor who shared with him her love of music and dance and whose hold over him led to his neglect of state affairs. It is rarely explained that the Concubine Yang was comparatively plump, conforming to the social concept of beauty of the era. By about 740 the Emperor, tired of the daily routine of his high office, now addicted to luxury and women, also became indolent. As the eunuchs gained ever greater control over state affairs so the emperor surrendered power into the hands of two men, Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong, the latter being a relative of the concubine.\n\nOnly this one woman, the Concubine Yang [Yang Guifei], a famous beauty, was able to fascinate the ageing emperor. He took her into his own harem where she speedily dominated the aged emperor's consort after which he gradually slid into dissipation with his name forever linked with her and their ill-fated romance. Her hold over him led to his loss of interest in imperial duties transforming him from being a staid and good ruler to a playboy. This led to his downfall and her murder. In the late 740s she adopted An Lushan as her son and she, the emperor and An remained in a very friendly relationship until immediately prior to him rebelling. Despite An's gross and huge frame scandalous stories have circulated down the ages of his sexual excesses with the emperor's concubine, Yang, which may or may not have had any truth to them.\n\nGeneral An lost the emperor's favour when Yang Guozhong, a distant relative of Yang Guifei who had worked his way into power, became the most powerful man in Court. He hated An and with the ear of the emperor he was able to turn the emperor's fondness into one of hate and distrust. Eventually, believing the calumny spread by Yang Guozhong, the emperor lost faith in his favourite general, An Lushan found his position untenable and finally, at the end of 755, he rebelled, almost certainly to counter the threat to himself posed by the ever-growing power of Yang Guozhong and his realisation that he had lost the support of the emperor. An Lushan's army drove east and in a series", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215105, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 201, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "158\n\nof victorious battles he captured Kaifeng and Luoyang where he had himself proclaimed emperor of the new dynasty of Greater Yan. His further campaigns and those of his subordinates were at first victorious; however, they then began to suffer a series of defeats at the hands of Guo Ziyi, one of China's most renowned generals, whose successes led to increased loyalist resistance to the rebel forces.\n\nA major consequence of the rebellion of An Lushan, was the withdrawal by the emperor of his forces garrisoning the North-west thereby losing control over China's far dominions in Zungaria and the Tarim Basin [today's Xinjiang province] for the best part of the next thousand years.\n\nFor a while it seemed that the balance was turning in the emperor's favour. However, the Capital garrison at Chang'an [Xi'an] was incapable of resisting the attacks of the rebel forces and after the defeat of his main army on the banks of the Yellow River the emperor in great alarm was forced to flee Chang'an accompanied by some of his entourage. They fled west heading to Sichuan province ahead of the rebel advance. En route, at Ma Wei, his escort mutinied, killed Yang Guozhong and forced the emperor to order the Concubine Yang be strangled to pacify his discontented guards. Stories have varied but the most popular versions claim that the emperor had no choice but order her to be strangled by his chief eunuch or that she was forced to commit suicide. On reaching the safety of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, the heir apparent had been persuaded to usurp the throne. Weary and distressed the old emperor, now in Chengdu, gave his assent to the new reign and became the retired emperor. The new emperor bestowed the title of Taishang Huangdi\n\nupon his father but kept him under house-arrest.\n\nThe heir-apparent made his way to Lingzhou in Gansu where he was proclaimed emperor Su Zong and was soon joined by two armies, one under Guo Ziyi. By 757 Guo had recovered the main and subsidiary capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang from the rebels, whereupon the new emperor summoned the former emperor back to Chang'an to ensure that he would not be the focus of any further intrigue and threat, where he died in 761. The father was then canonised as Zongming Huangdi\n\nthough usually he is still referred to as Ming Huang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215321, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 98, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "46\n\nmuddy plats, eventually reached the first \"gun-house,\" as the crumbling fort was known to the Chinese. Finally, the passengers reached the Custom House and on to whatever accommodation they had reserved or could find in this very primitive European backwater.\n\nChinese immigrants from Hainan, along with those from Fujian, Guangxi, and Guangdong, flocked down to the foreign colonies of south-east Asia. Though integrated into the greater Han Chinese population of Singapore and Penang, as well as within towns and cities in North Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, even today Hainanese have remained in one or two linguistic pockets, such as is to be found in the area of Rengam and Kluang in southern Malaysia.\n\nOnly a few of all the Chinese temples visited in South-east Asia have been categorically identified as exclusively founded by Hainanese immigrants. Others, predominantly Hokkien, have a Hainanese altar stuck away in one corner, erected by the few local Hainanese, though two temples stood out, both in southern Malaysia, in which the images of the deities were predominantly uniquely Hainanese, though the temple custodians, the devotees, and the other images were all Hokkien. The picture gained from Hainanese staff and devotees in temples containing uniquely Hainanese images revealed the following minimum of temples being predominantly, if not entirely, Hainanese - six in Singapore, two in Penang, one in Kuala Lumpur, one in Seremban, and two in or near Kluang in southern Malaysia; on Sumatra, one in Medan and two in Palembang; on Java, one in Jakarta, one in Cirebon, and one in Semarang. There are several in Ha Tien in southern Cambodia and others scattered across southern Thailand. The strangest of all was the lone, small Hainanese temple on Bali.\n\nHainanese temple altars bear the usual accoutrements and have the same layout as altars in other Chinese communities, though, to generalise, with less clutter, particularly on altars in Hainanese Huiguan [community club houses]. Major China-wide deities, such as Guan Yin, Guan Gong, Hua Guang, City Gods, Earth Gods, and the Wealth Gods, are the same as in every Chinese community. There are also a number of predominantly Cantonese, Chaozhou, and even Minnan deities in many of the Hainanese temples both in Hainan and in South-east Asia, adopted from other immigrant ethnic groups, including Jinhua Niangniang, Caibo Xingjun, Fazhu Gong, Qi Tian Da Sheng, Longwei.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215466, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 243, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "192\n\nOn arrival, I was immediately impressed also by the warmth of the Bhutanese people. Our guide came up to me and shook my hand in welcome. The 27 of us piled into the minibuses, and were presented with a white silk scarf each, a traditional Bhutanese form of welcome. The scarf proved to be a very welcome first line of defence against later chilly winds.\n\nThe road from the airport is reputed to be the longest stretch of straight road in the country. It has no choice, considering that it shares the narrow flat valley with a river and the runway. Half way up the winding road that took us from the valley floor to the hotel, I was rather touched to see the Department of Civil Aviation building - or perhaps \"cottage\" would be a more appropriate description. This delightfully small, two-storey wooden structure, beautifully decorated with traditional patterns, had a commanding view over the entire airstrip. One could imagine Mr Director looking at his pocket watch with pride as KB125 made another greaser of a landing exactly on schedule.\n\nInto the Interior\n\nI have spent many holidays in the Appian Alps in northern Tuscany, and my first impression of Bhutan's scenery was that it is all very similar, but more so. The mountains are bigger, the valleys steeper and wider, the light brighter. Comments also abounded comparing the scenery with Switzerland - mountains, neat and tidy, uniform. It soon struck us that the houses were all from the same design catalogue. Later we found out that this was in fact the case and was due to government decree - there is a standard traditional design that must be followed. And followed it is. At 7,200 feet above sea level, the air at Paro was very fresh, and being a mile and a half nearer the sun, the ultra violet was very much in evidence. (I thanked my wife for reminding me to pack my sunscreen.) Not many of us had been for long at such an altitude and there was much debate about altitude sickness. Would we all fall over or feel nauseous?\n\nThe minibuses quickly delivered us to the Olathang Hotel, about ten minutes from the airport. First impression was that it looked a bit like a monastery, but that was a function of the required building style making everything look somewhat religious. The reception desk had above it a large framed photograph of a good-looking man wearing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215492, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 269, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "218\n\nthe ground.\n\nUnobserved, I saw through a latticed window at the back of the hall the younger monks coming off duty from their performance next door. They were walking along happily, chatting and joking, just as young people would do anywhere, and pulling snacks from deep within their flowing robes.\n\nReturning my attention indoors, I saw that the wooden floors were also, in their own way, a work of art. Onto the pressed mud floor had been laid three-by-nine-inch joists, over which, cross-wise, had been placed two-inch thick planks. And over this second layer was a third, also two-inch planks, laid at right-angles. This last would eventually become the floor and would have the feel of polished marble when finished.\n\nIn the so-called civilised world, with so many obvious technological and other advantages over an undeveloped country such as Bhutan, would it be possible to use traditional skills, methods and materials to rebuild one of our national treasures if it were destroyed? I very much doubt it. It was most moving to see such skill and attention to detail.\n\nThen a workman's mobile phone rang.\n\nBrother, can you spare me a dance?\n\nIt was time to return to the viewing place as the monks were about to do their traditional dance. I don't know about you, but I don't normally associate monks with dancing. I was intrigued. Crossing the courtyard again, the sense of Something About To Happen was greater than ever. Some of the people wandering about were clearly important officials. They were wearing very smart gos, but the traditional white shawl in these cases had red designs on it, and they had extremely fancy woven footwear to boot. More to the point, they were carrying large shiny swords. All Bhutanese gave them an extremely wide berth. I thought it wise to do the same.\n\nThe viewing balcony was more crowded by now, even some other tourists. (Apart from ourselves, foreigners had been very few and far between during our trip - almost to the extent that some of us were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215652, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 429, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "381\n\ncannon. Both were smoothbore and muzzle loading.\n\nThe cannon at Taipa Fort is classed as coast artillery. It is smooth bored with a calibre of 163 mm (6.4 in.), thus, in the terminology of the day, it is a 32 pounder. When it was put in place, the 32 pounder had only recently replaced the 24 pounder as the normal size, though larger pieces soon came into service. It would probably have fired balls of cast iron although explosive shells were starting to become more popular at that time. These would have been loaded at the muzzle and sent on their way by a charge of gunpowder.\n\nContemporary sources show that a U.S. Ordnance 32 pounder had a barrel weight of about 7,200lbs (3,300 kg). The overall length of the barrel of this cannon, including the end ring, is 94 inches (2.38 m), shorter than the U.S. Ordnance standard; hence its weight is likely to be a bit less. With a charge of 8lbs (3.64 kg) of powder, and at an elevation of 5°, a standard gun would have a range of about 1,920 yards (1,750 m). Greater elevation and bigger charges could increase the range to 4,000 to 5,000 yards (3,600 to 4,500m), although with greater range the accuracy would decrease. Its location on Taipa meant the range could easily cover the surrounding sea passages.\n\nThe mounting on this cannon is termed a \"barbette\" mount, meaning it is mounted to fire above the parapet. This allowed it to be swivelled round to give a wide angular field of fire. The mounting is in two basic parts. The barrel is mounted on a compact carriage of timber, bound with iron straps, and with iron wheels which allow it to move backwards and forwards on a lower carriage that provides a traversing mechanism. This apparatus consists of a grillage of timber beams, mounted on iron wheels and able to rotate about a fixed pivot.\n\nThe wheels run on granite tracks that form arcs around the pivot. The rear wheels are connected via a sprocket and chain to a manually operated mechanism that rotates the mounting. A screw attached to the rear of the barrel adjusted its elevation. This screw would be turned by means of a spike inserted into holes in its shaft.\n\nThe mounting had one other function. As can be seen from the illustrations, the gun's primary carriage sits on top of the main rotational framework. It is apparently separate from it and the small iron wheels", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215747, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 46, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "# RESOLUTION\n\n# HONG KONG BRANCH\n\n# OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY\n\n# MARCH 21ST 2003\n\nAt the Annual General Meeting of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, held at the Hong Kong Club, on 21 March 2003, the following Resolution was adopted:\n\nResolved:\n\nThat the Society should, at the earliest opportunity, formally establish a Scholarship Fund, as a legal entity separate from the general funds of the Society, to allow the Society to make grants and disburse money for the purpose of sponsoring research in the field of Hong Kong studies, and of assisting publication of books in this field, subject to the Rules for the control and disbursement of such a Fund being agreed by Members, those Rules to include provision for the establishment of a Management Board to oversee the Fund, and for the Annual General Meeting of the Society to see and agree the audited accounts of the Fund year by year.\n\nThat the Hon. Treasurer of the Society be appointed Hon. Treasurer of the Scholarship Fund as well as Hon. Treasurer of the Society.\n\nThat the Society should, for the future, keep a cash reserve approximately equal to one year's routine expenditure, as assessed by the Hon. Treasurer of the Society.\n\nThat the present cash reserves of the Society being approximately HK$400,000 greater than one year's routine expenditure, HK$350,000 should be transferred from the general funds of the Society as soon as a Scholarship Fund has been formally and separately established into a Foundation Fund, so that the income from this sum so transferred can be devoted to the purposes of the Fund, subject to the sum transferred being kept as a Capital Sum, not to be spent, but only to be used for the purposes of generating income for the Fund.\n\nxxxvii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215812, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 111, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "44\n\nof Hong Kong's forests for fuel, shady spots were increasingly hard to come by as the war progressed.\n\nOn a more insidious note, temperature and humidity could affect the employment of chemical warfare. Thus far in the war, the use of chemical warfare had been minor, with both sides retaining their stockpiles of chemical warfare agents as deterrents rather than as first options. But as the war increased in ferocity, there was always the possibility that one or both sides might resort to more unconventional means on the battlefield.\n\nHong Kong, however, probably would not have been a good place to start for any side that wanted to resort to chemical warfare. Depending on the type of chemical agent used, Hong Kong's high temperatures and humidity during the middle of the year could be too adverse towards the effective employment of certain chemical warfare agents. Too high a temperature (above 75°F/24°C) could cause a premature evaporation of some agents, and excess humidity means that more water is present to react with some chemicals and therefore dilute the agents. At the other end, too low a temperature (below 32°F/0°C) or humidity could also be unfavourable for chemical warfare. Hong Kong's temperatures never go that low, and its period of low humidity occurs during the last three months of the year, which for most other factors related to the weather was the best time of the year for a Hong Kong landing.\n\nWinds\n\nBeing on the China Coast, Hong Kong received its fair share of winds, and then some. Winds could be unpredictable because they can change direction and speed. On the ground, a wind velocity of greater than 30 miles per hour (48 kilometres per hour) affects the accuracy of artillery fire control. If chemical warfare were employed, winds of greater than only 16 mph (26 kph) would blow any chemical agents (in gas form) off course, and a reverse wind could blow the agent back to the offending side.\n\nAside from thunderstorms, winds of greater than 30 mph (48 kph) could also diminish the value of barrage balloons. If the Japanese decided to attack the invading Allies in Hong Kong by air, they could try to exploit Hong Kong's mountainous terrain by flying low and using", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215844, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 143, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "76\n\nfor their organizers to send round subscription books in order to raise the necessary funds. In country districts, the usual targets were native sons living and working in the urban areas of Hong Kong, or men sojourning in various places overseas.\n\nThe care taken with their preparation reflected the desire - and equally likely, the need to show respect to the recipients. Like the attendance books mentioned above, the subscription books were drawn up in an approved style, and it was again usual to have them written by a well-known local scholar or, at the very least, by someone whose calligraphy would not disgrace the organizers (Plate 18 shows one such book, dated 1940, which survives from Tsing Yi island, New Territories).\n\nIn the 1950s, as long before, subscription books were still being prepared in this form, and I recall my chief clerk in the former District Office South bringing in a number of them for my endorsement with the office seal. However, by the 1970s things were different, and I do not recollect seeing these in the District Office, Tsuen Wan, at least not in the time-honoured form.\n\nWho were the calligraphers?\n\nFor the production of all the items listed above, writers of a certain calibre and reputation were required. Some of the paid secretaries had these skills, and were greatly esteemed for them, but the associations were also able to enlist the help, from among their closer contacts,\n\nof other men with claims to scholarship, who were able and willing to write the scrolls, couplets, presentation items and subscription books mentioned in this paper.\n\nIn rural districts, these persons might be a local teacher or headmaster. Their place in the local community was assured, especially if, as was often the case, they were men of worth as well as talent. In the early period of my service, before they were removed by Father Time, there might, too, still be a few rare birds who, like old Mr. Lo, had passed the imperial examinations, as well as a greater number who had achieved honourable failure. Greatly esteemed for their education and attainments, but by then of advanced age, they were still willing to assist for as long as they were able, recognizing the need for their participation, and conscious of the great face given thereby. I have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215930, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 229, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "163\n\na new breed of intelligence officer. Grimsdale recalled his admiration with the ease with which Boxer could gain the trust of the Japanese.\n\nWhen the Japanese conquered Guangdong in 1938, Boxer arranged an invitation for himself and Grimsdale to visit the Commander of Japanese Forces, General Ando, whom he had known socially in London. To Grimsdale's amazement, Ando showed them round Japanese installations in his own staff car. They were able to inspect troop positions, aerodromes and see the power of the Japanese army at first hand. Perhaps that was Ando's subtle point, but it benefited both parties. At one stage, the general joked to Boxer that the British should stop supporting the Chinese 'then we could finish off this bloody war and all go home.' In the same jesting vein, Boxer answered that the Japanese should stop supporting the Germans.\n\nBoxer and his colleagues made a point of travelling and meeting people. Through personal contacts they were able to extract more information, and get an understanding of context. Boxer and his colleagues were articulate and fluent in Chinese or Japanese, and above all sensitive to the cultures, aware of the place of Hong Kong in the overall Chinese scheme of things. They illustrated the concept that \"well informed is well armed.\" Nor were they the only ones. In 1937/8, the Japanese Army in central China had agreed to take a young Japanese speaking British officer \"on attachment\" for nine months. Although his detailed report was misinterpreted (the atrocities in China were deemed a 'temporary lapse') is the then Military Attache and Foreign Office agreed that a non confrontational approach was more effective in getting information and defusing potential incidents.\n\niv\n\nAlert to the nuances of Japanese politics, Boxer sensed in July 1939, a sharp deterioration in Japanese attitudes towards the British. He interpreted this as a move by the Japanese Army to find a scapegoat for their lack of progress in the China campaign. He reported 'at present there can be no greater error than to assume as is so often done that Japan's military machine is too bogged down in China to prevent it being turned towards us...the only thing likely to restrain the Japanese Army....is the fear of possible complications with the United States of America.\" His warnings however went unheeded: Europe was itself just about to plunge into war, and to the Foreign Office, Hong Kong seemed very far away. Indeed, the note covering Boxer's letter", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215931, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 230, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "164 \n\nlaconically states that, even on what was actually his honeymoon visit, Boxer had not lost his 'powers of observation.' \n\nIn accordance with the policy of withdrawing resources to Singapore, supposedly an impregnable fortress, the FECB was downscaled and most of its men and resources moved. Boxer was promoted to Major, with a small staff, which included his close friend and best man, Alf Bennett. Ironically, this gave him greater flexibility to use his own initiative. \n\n4 \n\nUnable to make much headway with London, Boxer flew to Chongqing to see the British Ambassador, Sir Alexander Clarke-Kerr. Boxer then made contacts with key figures in the Chinese military. He was received by none other than General Dai Li, head of the formidable Juntong or Bureau of Statistics and Military Intelligence. After the Generalissimo himself, to whom his loyalty was almost feudal, General Dai was perhaps the most powerful man in China. An extremely shrewd strategic thinker, he was in many ways the power behind the throne. His organisation, fiercely secretive and ruthless, has been described as a sort of Chinese Gestapo, prepared to use any means, including murder, to achieve its aims. Dai was fanatically devoted to Chiang Kai Shek, and shaped the Juntong to be a dreaded political as well as military machine, spying on all perceived enemies of the state, Communists and fellow Guomindang as well as Japanese. The Juntong organisation was highly effective, operating through cells united by family and social bonds, whose members were expected to subsume all private needs to the pursuance of state aims, however lethal. It has been demonstrated that General Dai and his followers modelled themselves on folk heroes from Chinese history who operated through secret societies and who believed that extreme action such as assassination, was justified in the interests of the common good. Dai was known to be anti-western, for he believed that western countries with their imperialist policies were the cause of China's humiliation, and were exploiting its weakness for their own aims. Many assumed that Dai's anti-British stance was on the personal embarrassment of having been mysteriously arrested in Hong Kong, thus conveniently sidestepping questions raised by decades of opium and gunboats. Dai also believed that any western country operating in China should function under Chinese control, an idea anathema to westerners used to extraterritoriality and getting their own terms. Boxer, however, found Dai co-operative and willing to ...\n\nbased", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216053, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 352, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "286\n\nParker might pitch it into the nearest ditch as far as he cared, but it was as much as his place was worth for him to touch it. The Municipal Council issued notices and offered compensation, and meanwhile every day during their walks and rides they had to go round the obstructive eyesore. The Daotai had second thoughts and issued a proclamation saying that he had expostulated with Parker and in his reverent affection for human bones told him that he would have to wait for the agnatic descendants to come forward. This put Parker in a very uncomfortable position and he determined to go the Daotai one better. He therefore issued a proclamation explaining that no one had greater affection for human bones than he but pointed out that the coffin ran the risk of desecration, and that even distant members of the family were authorised to take it away at once. He then gave a broad hint to the Municipal Council that if distant members of the family turned up at dead of night with pick and shovel, no questions would be asked. It blew hard that evening and the air was filled with sleet. When he went out for his early walk the coffin had disappeared. The dealers in donkey-skins had taken four municipal policemen, dug a hole in the next field and then, after transferring the coffin, had slunk away. Nothing happened!\n\nParker explained how Chinese and Tartar soldiers made a nuisance of themselves not only trouble making but also simply by strolling through the foreign settlement in order to steal a look at foreign devils. When he was Consul there, certain Europeans used to connive at gaming-houses, and take shares in native theatres; not to mention pawnshops, drinking houses and other places ever less orthodox, all flourishing under the sacred nose of Her Majesty's Consul. He found Zhenjiang a very rowdy place both from a foreign and native point of view. Consequently the municipal police had plenty of work. One strolling warrior was arrested for \"committing a nuisance\" and promptly punched the policeman's head. He was at last overpowered by others, and temporarily lodged in the consular gaol, the keeper of which was a one-eyed old soldier named Joshua Nunn, who boasted several medals, and had served his country bravely and well in the wars. Some more Chinese soldiers soon gathered round, and began to threaten a rescue, and even burn down the Consulate. Parker gave orders to plucky old Nunn to lock the man up in his strongest cell whilst he sent a pencil message round by the tingchai to each of three sturdy Britishers: \"Please step round with your gun: I expect a row\". In less than five minutes they were there, and with Parker sat before the entrance with their guns.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216133, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 432, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "366\n\nand keyword searching of author, title and journal. The full text of the articles will be displayed if copyright clearance has been obtained. Together with the printed indexes, the database, which provides greater coverage, and fast and convenient searching capabilities, will greatly assist scholars in locating information in the Journal for their research on Hong Kong and the Far East.\n\nAutomation\n\nWith computerisation of the collection at the City Hall Library, the Society's collection has become far more accessible than it was in the past. The Dynix Library System makes available bilingual access to the Society's records of both western and East Asian materials. Books, journals and other materials can be more efficiently retrieved by searching the automated catalogue, by author, title, subject, and/or keywords. The old printed card catalogues are no longer used and have been discarded. In November 1997, the system was further enhanced to allow remote access to the collection via the Hong Kong Public Libraries online catalogue. Users who are connected to the network may access the catalogue in offices or at home, and no longer have to take special trips to the Library for required information.\n\nIn support of the Hong Kong Government's Digital 21 initiative, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society created an Internet website in 2001. This was done by Ms. Moody Tang and the website provides information on the Society, its history, activities, and publications on the Internet. Also, with the establishment of a hyperlink to the Hong Kong Public Libraries' online catalogue, the website offers an alternative gateway to the Society's collection. It also serves as a powerful vehicle in promoting the Society and its collection to scholars, libraries, institutions, and the world at large.\n\nConclusion\n\nFounded in 1847, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, through the dedication and support of its members, will continue to strive to provide a forum for the sharing of knowledge and experience, and discussion of common interests. The Library, moved to the new Hong Kong Central Library in May 2001, has finally found a home with modern well-equipped facilities where its excellent and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216240, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 539, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "473\n\nmodernity' (p.10) and is a very good read: in places, simply riveting.\n\nThe Introduction sets the style and the content (and quality) one can expect (and get), from the whole book of 371 pages. The chapters are devoted to different aspects of China's modernisation, as seen through the eyes of persons from many levels of society. We see them benefiting, or in many cases suffering, from rapid urban and economic change, in Beijing (especially fast-tracked owing to the coming 2008 Olympics), Shanghai, and in the countryside. We visit West China, and listen to those affected by the immense scale of the Three Gorges Dam. Tibet and Taiwan are also on the menu. There is a chilling and most compelling chapter on \"subversion,\" including an enlightening account of Falun Gong. Interspersed, are fascinating chapters on the writer's family background in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and on her own life in the Colony, from birth until she left to study journalism in Australia in 1981. There are final chapters on the social upheavals caused by the ongoing shift away from state capitalism, and on the new-style problems affecting China's progress towards becoming a developed nation.\n\nMany topics come alive through the wide range of personal stories resulting from the author's oft demonstrated ability to create and utilise opportunities for meaningful discourse in a country where this is, quite clearly, far from being an easy task; whilst her frank and engaging descriptions of how she circumvented difficulties that would have stymied less determined mortals, is itself a valuable commentary on China's bureaucracy and the relationship of government and people.\n\nThe book's popular style is deceptive, because a relentlessly probing approach makes this essentially a serious book, in which the author describes, graphically and convincingly, how China finds herself at present, with all her attendant problems and difficulties. Despite being able to reveal much that is still wrong, and harmful to the nation's progress, she is essentially optimistic in her Epilogue, emphasizing how far China has come in the last decade, and advising her readers that 'China isn't going to collapse' though in need of greater transparency, especially in the financial sector.\n\nWe are left pondering how China's rulers are going to cope with a runaway situation. For this reviewer, the author's experiences whether", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216339, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "47\n\nThere was a downside to this denial of access and more reliable information. For most Britons (as for most Europeans) China had been a country steeped in fantasy and misconception. The 18th century craze for \"Chinoiserie\" had left them with a vision of Cathay, rather than knowledge of the real China. But as time went on; in some curious way, a much less attractive hodgepodge of exotic notions about the country and its people had been assembled, and by the time of the Opium War, this seems to have displaced the benign willow-pattern, and the romantic tale which accompanied it, in the public mind.\n\nAn early Protestant missionary to China told his readers that when he went there in 1839 he carried with him the following notions in regard to what 'most people in the West entertain about the Chinese,' some of [which] elements may be said to be, \"odd manners, pig-tails, cramped feet, long nails, fans, paintings, rice-paper drawings, processions, concentric balls, lanterns, chopsticks, eating rats, mice, and bird's nest soup, popular infanticide, and an utter want of benevolence'.73 These were attributes which found visual expression in the comic illustrations provided by the artist John Leech for Thomas Henry Sealy's 1841 compilation, The Porcelain Tower, Nine Stories of China, a book purporting to provide more information on the country, but more likely intended as a great \"send-up\" of the entire Chinese nation.74\n\nNor, in retrospect (albeit there was little alternative, given the linguistic variations of the Chinese language and the more or less permanent ban against teaching it to Westerners) was the enforced adoption of “pidgin\" at Canton, as the lingua franca of commercial and social exchange, calculated to convey a fuller understanding or enhance mutual respect.75\n\nChinese disdain for the West\n\nThe half truths and misconceptions common to those Britons who bothered to think at all about China and the Chinese were only matched by the even greater ignorance exhibited by Chinese about the West, even by the governing classes. However erudite (they were largely scholar-officials) their mind set was cast in an entirely different mould. For them, China was the \"Middle Kingdom,\" the centre of the universe, and all outside its borders were barbarians who were only allowed a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216444, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 203, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "153\n\nrecruit Chinese labour for the South African mines had been discussed and taken before the outbreak of the war).\n\nNOTES\n\ni The Russian's naval port at Port Arthur was built beside the small Chinese town of Qingniwa now part of greater Dalian (called Dalny by the Russians). The Chinese town was known to the Russians as either the Chinese town or the Old Town.\n\nii Mukden was Fengtian in Qing times; also Shengjing.\n\nThis consisted of revolutionary agitation, with strikes, riots and mutinies in the army and navy - including the mutiny on the Potemkin in Odessa in June 1905.\n\niv The IG In Peking: Vol. II: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 1971: Hart's Letter 1319 of 28 February 1904\n\n* Ernest Brindle: With Russian, Japanese and the Chunchuse - The Experiences of an Englishman during the Russo-Japanese War: John Murray: London: 1905 (A number of observations provided by Brindle have also been quoted within this article)\n\nv Sakuya Takahashi: International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War: Stevens and Sons, Ltd: London: 1908 - Chapter IV: Section I\n\nvii Newchwang [(Niuzhuang) is a town some 30 miles inland and connected by the River Liao with its port, formerly Port Newchwang, and known to the Chinese as Yingkou. Newchwang had been a Treaty Port with Western resident businessmen and missionaries since 1861.\n\nviii Some four months after the outbreak of the war foreign newspaper correspondents were complaining that neither the Russians nor the Japanese allowed them to see much of what was going on. Both belligerents claimed that war was too serious an affair to let plans be spoiled by correspondents. Japanese reports were considered more reliable and Russian accounts were not taken seriously.\n\nix [C]hun[c]huse was probably the Russian romanisation for Hong Huzi.\n\nx Shao Yuchun: Minzu Lao Yingxiong - Wang Delin: (Wang Delin, Old Hero): in Tan Yi [ed] Dongbei Kangri Yiyongjun Renwuzhi: Vol 2: 1981\n\nxi Mancall and Jidkoff: Les Honghuzi de la Chine du Nord-Est: 1970\n\nxii War in the East: Virtue and Co.: London: Volume VI\n\nxiii International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War: Chapter IV: Section II\n\nxiv Illustration in Japan's Fight for Freedom H.W. Wilson: The Amalgamated Press: London: 1905 - Volumes I and II.\n\nxv * Hart's letter No. 1387 dated 29 October 1905", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]