[ { "id": 207073, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "138 \n\nK. M. A. BARNETT \n\never attempted to solve... who lived in what is now the Colony and Leased Territory of Hong Kong 600 years ago and what language did they speak?' \n\nI had then just written an article for Mr. J. M. Braga's Hong Kong Symposium in which I summarized evidence from various historical sources. A little new evidence has come to light since that article was written in 1956, and it will not be amiss to mention the chief facts. \n\nThree of the existing Punti160 clans, and one Hakka137, claim continuous residence since the eleventh century A.D. The Punti clans appear to have been connected with the military posts set up in the Southern Han135 dynasty (A.D. 917-971) and wherever Punti160 and Hakka11 are found in the same area the Hakkas always have the inferior foot-hill land--the typical pattern of a partial conquest by later arrivals, pushing the earlier inhabitants up into the hills. \n\nAt this time Lantao141 and other islands, Hong Kong harbour itself and the peninsulas that jut into Mirs Bay153 were controlled by boat-people. It can be shown that both of the present kinds of boat-people (Tanka175 and Hoklo138) were represented. They were still unassimilated, and independent enough to require strong garrisons to keep them quiet, at the beginning of the Yüan182 dynasty. The suppression of the pearl fishing A.D. 1319-(the late Mr. Sung Hok Pang169 said 1324) was intended to conciliate them. \n\nThe assimilation of the hill-tribes was not begun till the Yuan dynasty at the earliest. The petition of Chang Wei-yen134 of Taipo170 in 1318 mentions two tribes, named Yao179 and Shan-lao-165. The 1819 edition of the Hsin-an-chih139 mentions only Yao. All the present hill cultivators claim Chinese descent and all speak Hakka137. Some, however, claim continuous occupation since the Ming152 dynasty, so that if they are really of Chinese descent they must have lived side by side with aboriginal tribes for two centuries. Again, some of those who claim to be Chinese claim also to have been there from time immemorial, and some still preserve the cult of the creator-god P'an-ku159, which is said to indicate a Yao origin. The truth is probably that in some places the aborigines were killed off or driven away, in a few others they adopted the Chinese language and 'passed' as Chinese, while in others there was intermarriage and the offspring were accepted as Chinese. \n\nIn circumstances such as these it is usual for something of the original languages to survive: in the everyday terms used in fishing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210451, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "39\n\nproposed resettlement was a matter for the land villagers alone. As the day fixed for the move drew nearer, however, they began to fear that they too would be expected to leave. It was true that the original reason for deciding upon the move was to prevent the future accumulation of massive claims for compensation (with the resulting time-consuming investigations, apportionment of responsibility between civil and military authorities and so on), but in the absence of knowledge about the status of the fishermen at their anchorage it seemed only too likely that once the householders had been moved away the Army authorities would assume it to be no longer necessary to maintain the safety angle during gunnery practice. The fishermen began to wonder about their own safety, but remained extremely reluctant even to consider moving. They were, they said, Kau Sai residents, descended most of them from fishermen who had anchored in the bay long before any houses had been built. Kau Sai, they maintained, was excellently placed for their fishing grounds, and ideally well-equipped for tasks like fish-drying and sail-making, that had to be done ashore. Furthermore, the fung shui of “our bay\" was uniquely propitious or, as some of them put it, the god of their temple, who was a fisherman's god, had been very good to them and they were not prepared to desert him and risk the consequences of his displeasure.\n\nIn other\n\nThe examination of the validity of their argument words, the problem of the degree to which the potentially completely mobile Boat People are in fact tethered to any one spot or area is one of the major themes of this book. To cut a long story short now, it is enough to say that the argument was in fact accepted. On a morning in June 1952 three L.S.W.'s arrived to remove the Hakka land families. The fishermen sat and watched them go. Hardly a word was exchanged. Within a few days the landsmen had returned and stripped their buildings of tiles and anything else of any value. The temple, two shops and two other houses remained. For the rest the village appeared to be in ruins.\n\nThe anchorage, however, was unaffected. The safety angle remained on the guns. The fishermen went about their ordinary business, and prospered. The move in fact coincided with the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212167, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "86\n\nA local Ch'ao-chou cult image seen on a secondary altar in a tiny makeshift rural temple in Ulu Sembawang in Singapore is said to represent the spirit of a nine-year-old boy who died in the late 1960s. He is the medium spirit who speaks through his aunt, providing advice for local devotees. His aunt raised the image after she found that the spirit of the boy returned to her in a dream offering to help people. The boy is known by the title of 'the Prince of the East of the Sea', Hai-tung Tai-tzu.\n\nA Cantonese Kuomintang soldier, Huang Chin-ch'uang, crossed to Taiwan in 1949 with the retreating KMT forces. He was posted to Pingtung near Kaohsiung and served with a unit near the main village on the island of Little Liuchiu where some time later he became ill and died. The people of the village, remembering his kindness and goodwill and knowing that he had no family of his own, buried him in an auspicious spot on the hillside. He became the spirit guarding the hills above the village and also gained renown for his ability to protect fishermen in danger. A shrine, a privately run temple, was built in his honour and an image of him placed on the altar where he is now known as Marshal Huang despite having been a mere private soldier.\n\nWang was a sailor left behind in Java by the great Ming explorer Cheng Ho at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His image is to be seen on a side altar in the Earth God temple at Ancol, not all that far from Jakarta, whilst tablets dedicated to him are to be seen in Chinese temples in Semarang and near Sourabaya, all on the island of Java. Local Chinese belief is divided as to whether he was pure Chinese or Javanese, and whether he was a shipwright, navigator, or senior member of Cheng Ho's crew, or merely a Javanese interpreter. They are at one, however, that Wang was a Moslem and that he married a Javanese wife and lived out his days, dying peacefully in Semarang.\n\nOf these ten male and two female spirits, all but two are represented by stylised images on altars, and they are taken from each of the main ethnic groups along the south China coast, the Cantonese, Fukienese, Hakka, Ch'ao-chou, and Hainanese.\n\nFive originated during the past fifty years, three some time during the past century, whilst four definitely developed during the Ch'ing dynasty.\n\nOnly six of the spirits still have their full names remembered, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213838, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "163\n\nhave served as the focal point of village coalition organization as early as the 18th century. Pending verification is the identity of Houwang. As commonly held, he was the Chinese folk hero, Yang Liang-chieh, who had loyally protected the last emperor of the Sung, fleeing by sea from the victorious Mongols. The young emperor and his bodyguard, under Yang's leadership, finally landed near what is now Kowloon. Legend also holds that they spent some of their last days in the Tung Chung Valley. It is suggested that not only Yang's honourable behavior, but also the fact that he was a refugee far from home, deeply touched the hearts of early immigrants to this new land, especially the Hakka people.\n\nIn local people's minds, indeed, there is no doubt of the efficacy of this hero-turned-god. For their families and themselves, they come to procure divine assistance in connection with serious illness, financial problems, the picking of propitious days for marriage, long journeys, house construction, and so forth. By casting the divining blocks before the altar, the deity's instructions are revealed to them. Small-scale ritual transactions between the deity and individual worshippers are usually carried out with the assistance of the miao-chu, the temple's keeper and religious specialist. In the case of marriage, for instance, it is the Houwang who decides, through the temple keeper, whether the betrothed are well-matched.\n\nBesides day-to-day ritual transactions invoking the local god's help in meeting personal or family needs, annual religious activities also strengthen villagers' patronage of the temple. Examples are the occasion of tso-fu (make blessing), usually held in the second lunar month, during which the worshipper requests the god's favour in the coming year, and the observance of huan-shen (repay the spirits), held at the end of the year to repay the god for his blessings. While these relatively small-scale rituals are performed on behalf of individual worshippers, the Houwang's Birthday celebration is held on behalf of the community as a collectivity. Thus it best demonstrates the role of the local principal deity in maintaining a communal sense of identity among villages, which have formed a united body in the territory, and the function of the temple as a village-coalition temple.\n\nEven the date for the festival carries distinctive local characteristics. While the Houwang's Birthday is on the 6th of the sixth lunar month", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214198, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "19\n\neration to be found in wine. Then there is Journey to the West, which has been translated into English, where the Monkey King goes in search of immortality. We have Chinese opera and puppets (Liu, 1995:43-58). A great deal of mirth is to be found at Hong Kong festivals, whether it be at the Cheung Chau Bun Festival or the festival of the Hakka Boy God, Tam Kung. Then again, close friends of a bridegroom get a great deal of enjoyment from making fun of him on his wedding night.\n\nThere is also considerable humour (funniness) in the countless everyday expressions of 'old one-hundred names' (the man in the street). Such sayings which can be described as 'words that work,' are as common in China as chopsticks. For example, inserting money in a car-parking meter is known as 'feeding the hungry tiger,' and, when one is 'booked,' the 'ticket' placed under the windscreen wiper of one's car by a traffic warden, is called naau yuk kon (4), which is slang meaning a thin slice of Chinese dried, sweet beef. There is also a great deal of humour in the vocabularies of merchants and con men, nicknames and clever allusions to everyday objects and curses (Bolton, 1997:299). To scold someone is also an art which onlookers often treat as entertainment. The art is for the person to stand there and give the other person face and let him or her have their say. Then, after remaining quiet, the other person steps in and lets the other party have it!\n\nThe Chinese language abounds with expressions, many commonly used, which make you smile on the outside and laugh within. There are amusing adages such as:\n\n(a) Melon fields, under the pear tree.\n\n(Cantonese know, when this is said it means: don't bend down in a melon field or adjust your hat under a pear tree, or people may think you are stealing melons or pears. Thus, it implies, do not arouse suspicion.)\n\n(b) When a pretty woman marries an ugly man it is like sticking fresh flowers behind the ears of a donkey.\n\n(c) Local ginger is not hot.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]