[ { "id": 205143, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "94\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nI have not heard of other monasteries in China that had such wide-spreading or deep-rooted connections overseas as Ku Shan. It may have been unique. But it was extremely common for monks and lay pilgrims to go back and forth between overseas Chinese communities and the \"famous mountains” at home. Even at Wu-t'ai Shan near the Inner Mongolian border, one could find pilgrims from Singapore. In 1936, when Tai Chi-t'ao was on his way back from Europe, he stopped in Manila to lay the cornerstone of a new Buddhist temple sponsored by a group of overseas Chinese who, since 1930, had been serving as Philippines distributor for a Buddhist publishing house in Soochow. Here as elsewhere in southeast Asia, Buddhism was a link with the motherland.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 James Troup, \"On the tenets of the Shinshiu or 'True Sect' of Buddhists,\" Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 16 (June 1886), 14-16.\n\n2 Takada, Giko, Chusi shukyo daido renmei nenkan (Yearbook of the Great Harmony Religious Alliance of Central China), Shanghai, 1943, p. 10. I am obliged to Dr. Ho Kuan-chung for making this book available to me.\n\n3 Yang Jen-shan, Yang Jen-shang chü-shih i-chu (Works of upasaka Yang Jen-shang), Peking, 1923, 1:5. This temple appears to have gone out of existence at some later date, since the Nanking branch of Honganji mentioned by Takada (see preceding note) was set up in 1938. A Japanese temple in Changsha was noted by Hackmann in 1911 (German Scholar in the East, London, 1914, p. 108). This is also unlisted by Takada.\n\n4. Franke, “Die Propaganda des japanischen Buddhismus in China”, Ostasiatische Neubildungen, Hamburg, 1911, p. 159. This article by Franke is the source of most of the information given in the text, pp. 2-4.\n\n5 This episode is also referred to in Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü tashih nien-p'u, Hong Kong, 1950, p. 35-36, where thirteen monasteries in Hangchow alone were said to have become affiliated with the Honganji. More investigation is needed.\n\n6 Takada, p. 14.\n\n7 There were twenty-six Chinese delegates, according to Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 203. The official head of the Chinese delegation and Chinese vice-chairman of the conference was Tao-chieh, under whom T'ai-hsü had studied twenty years before (Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 26 ff). T'ai-hsü may be pardoned, perhaps, for giving people the impression that he was himself the chief of the delegation. (See, for example, Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 177; T'ai-hsü Lectures on Buddhism, Paris, 1928, p. 14,\n\n8 Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 179-180.\n\n9 This and other information given here on the East Asian Buddhist Conference comes largely from Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 176-177.\n\n10 Tokiwa Daijo, Shina bukkyo shiseki kinen shu (Buddhist Monuments in China, Memorial Collection), Tokyo, 1931, p. 203.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205179, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "JAMES HAYES \n\ntype based on the Tai Shek Kwu temple, the kaifongs usually deliberated in a temple.\n\nThe Yau Ma Ti Kaifong was closely linked with the Tin Hau Temple. This temple was apparently removed from another site in 1876-7743 and it is almost certain that the Kaifong took the lead in its removal and reconstruction. They also took the opportunity to construct a school building to one side of the temple about the same time. These building projects were considerable undertakings and as such were highly creditable to the Kaifong members. Some years later (1888) the Kaifong presented the temple with a large cast iron bell which bears their name. Finally in 1894, the growing wealth of the Yau Ma Ti community enabled the Kaifong to build a separate community office or kung sor (2) on the other side of the temple building. The commemorative tablet recording this event comments:\n\n\"Yau Ma Ti district has undergone many changes and it can hardly be said that it still remains as it used to be.\n\nConsequently there was a need for larger premises in which to handle the affairs of a growing population. As the organisers put it:\n\n\"Persons who desire that right and wrong can be clearly discerned must help to set up a community office\".\n\nThe tablet concludes:\n\nThe organisers and donors confidently expect to see the new office uphold justice and righteousness\".\n\nThis temple, school and community office still exist today. They stand on Public Square Street, Kowloon, in substantially the same form as when they were erected in the last quarter of the nineteenth century by the leaders of the Yau Ma Ti Kaifong, to whose enterprise and community spirit they are a fitting memorial.\n\nFortunately we have a good example who spans the two localities considered in this article, the one a group of villages and the other a township. This man, WONG Lan-sang (£), 1878-1935, came from one of the villages. His father was a small farmer whose ancestors had come previously to Mong Kok village from the Wai Yeung region of Kwang Tung. The son is a good\n\nPage 130\n\n44\n\n+1\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206278, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n89\n\nFukienese merchants to settle in Hong Kong. Several other merchants appear on the earliest of the élite lists indicating their presence in the first decade of the Colony's history.\n\nIn 1852 \"Cun-wo A Kwi, merchant\" contributed five dollars to Dr. Hirschberg's Hospital. This is Chow Aki* of the firm Cong-wo, which had been established in the Lower Bazaar in 1842, having a branch at Canton. In 1849 he bought the lease of the Central Market, holding it until 1857. He became a large investor in real estate, but sold out most of his property in 1866 and retired to Macao.\n\nA merchant who survived the pitfalls of commerce in early Hong Kong was Wong Ping1. He is named as a silk merchant on the land-owners' petition of 1848, but he was one of Hong Kong's first industrialists in that he owned a rope walk beyond the western end of the Lower Bazaar. He was one of three trustees to hold Inland Lot 361 in Taipingshan on behalf of the Chinese community. The lot was granted in 1851 and upon it was built a temple \"for the reception of Tablets to the memory of... deceased countrymen\".22 The building was used, however, not only for memorial tablets but also as a depository for those who were about to die, following established Chinese custom. When this use came to the notice of the European community it was shocked. The reaction and public discussion which followed resulted in Government allocating a grant from the revenues of the gambling monopoly to the Chinese community for the erection of a suitable hospital to be known as Tung Wah. Wong Ping was not a member of the Organizing Committee of the Hospital, though he was on the Kai Fong Committee for 1872. He died in 1887. Wong Yue Yee alias Wong Yick Bun, of the Chun Cheong Wing Nam Pak Hong, a Director of the Tung Wah in 1872, may have been a relative as Wong Ping is mentioned in 1881 as a managing partner of the Chun Cheung Hong for some twenty years. He also was associated with the Tsui Shing firm and the Tuck Mee Hong.\n\nIn the 1850s the Taiping Rebellion upset the social and economic structures of China. The changes in China were reflected in changes in Hong Kong. The Taiping threat upon Canton created a refugee group which sought in Hong Kong more stable conditions. Some were wealthy and brought their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206403, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nVISIT TO THE TUNG LIN KOK YUEN, TAM KUNG TEMPLE, HAPPY VALLEY, AND TIN HAU TEMPLE, CAUSEWAY BAY, SATURDAY, 7TH NOVEMBER 1970\n\nTung Lin Kok Yuen\n\nThe Tung Lin Kok Yuen(t) is a Buddhist nunnery situated at Shan Kwong Road, Happy Valley, not far from the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club stables. It was founded by the late Lady Hotung (1878-1938), wife of that well-known Hong Kong figure, Sir Robert Hotung. The Yuen comprises a Buddhist temple and the Po Kok Vocational Middle School. The main building was completed in mid-1935 when two other institutions founded by Lady Hotung, the Po Kok Free School in Percival Street and a Buddhist seminary in Castle Peak were moved to it. The Yuen is said to be the only place in the Colony which provides a seminary for Buddhist nuns, and the study of Buddhism forms a major part of the curriculum. A new school building was opened in November, 1951 and an extension for teachers' quarters in 1954.\n\nAlthough the Yuen is not very old, it is of special interest in that the religious images, furniture and other fittings survived the Japanese occupation when so much else in the Colony was dispersed or destroyed, so that we can see today, more or less, how the Yuen looked when it was completed in 1935. Readers of Mrs. Jean Gittins' recently published book Eastern Windows Western Skies (Hong Kong, South China Morning Post Ltd., 1969) pp. 106-7, will recall how many of the internal fittings for the Yuen were carried out by Shanghainese craftsmen in Sir Robert Hotung's house on the Peak.\n\nOf particular interest are two halls devoted to the maintenance of memorial tablets for the dead. One of these, named after one of Sir Robert Hotung's sons who died early, there is a painting of him in the hall is part of the original building, whilst an extension was added about 10 years ago. The persons depositing memorial tablets in these halls are said to pay a once-for-all donation to the Yuen. Besides memorial tablets kept under glass-fronted altars, there are also lists of names written on pink paper.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207063, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "128\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nbe feared, but internecine wars are almost always raging between some or other of the villages: and these wars, although often arising from trivial causes, are not mere temporary quarrels, but are often long-continued and sanguinary'.1 He gives a description of these feuds, and relates one example in which the District Magistrate, even with a force of 1,000 men, was unable to restore peace, and could not even save his face without the mediation of a neighbouring village. The device that secured this, Krone comments, had no influence at all upon the dispute, fighting being carried on afterwards just as before\".2\n\nThere are several documented examples of intervillage and clan wars from the mainland New Territories at this time which indicate that Krone was not exaggerating the situation in mid century. Halls to 'martyrs' killed in these struggles were provided in at least four local temples, each containing memorials to slain heroes. These are to be found in the temples at Shek Kong (Pat Heung), Miu Kong (Tsuen Wan), Lam Tsuen, and Yuen Long (Shap-pat Heung). The Tsuen Wan memorial tells of a three year feud between the Tsuen Wan villagers and Shing Mun Pat Heung, beginning in the first year of the Tung Chih reign (1862-1863) and ended only after eventually successful mediation by elders of neighbouring villages. During this time, the Tsuen Wan villages—their men being outnumbered according to the tablet—were invaded and left in ruins, and 17 local men were killed in the prolonged struggle.3\n\nBaker gives other local and contemporary examples of these clan wars taken from genealogies and village tradition in the northern New Territories. He also draws attention to the feuds that occurred within local lineages, including frequent fights between the Ping Shan and Ha Tsuen branches of the Tang lineage. These persisted into the British period. In 1921, in his administrative report for that year, the District Officer North mentions trouble that 'assumed very serious proportions' over water rights between\n\n1 Krone, p. 114.\n\n2 Krone, pp. 125-126.\n\n3 The hall at Miu Kong is entitled the I-yung Tz'u (義勇祠) and that at Yuen Long the Ying-yung Tz'u (英勇祠). In the Pat Heung temple the tablet is in the Ching-chung Tz'u (清忠祠). At Lam Tsuen there is no named hall, but a side room contains a tablet bearing the characters jang hsiang ch'ang sheng lu wei (...).\n\n4 Baker, 1968, pp. 167, 183 and 187.\n\n5 Baker, 1968, p. 188 and Baker 1965, pp. 39-41.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207134, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 205, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n199 \n\norder to re-grant the area to the individual section holders. The Governor in Council cancelled the re-entry respecting the Temple site in 1928, and a new lease as Inland Lot 2705 was obtained by the parties who had purchased it in 1923. This time they were designated as trustees for the Kwong Yut Tong (...). Of these trustees, Ng Tsz Mei about 1930 is listed as head of a construction company; and Ng Wah, head of the Sang Tai firm, died in 1950.” \n\nThe Lo Pan Temple \n\nThis is, to my knowledge, the only temple erected to Lo Pan, the God of Carpenters, in Hong Kong. It is, suitably, a fine temple, and still in the ownership of the Kwong Yut Tong or 'Hall (Association) of Extended Gratification'. This clearly takes a close interest in its upkeep and is responsible for the annual ceremonies on the birthday of the saint which falls on the 13th day of the 6th moon each year. \n\nThe Kwong Yut Tong of Hong Kong was incorporated under the Companies Ordinance on 14th September 1962. Among the objects listed in its Memorandum of Association are the following— \n\n(a) To take over the management, assets and liabilities of the unincorporated association known as the Kwong Yut Tong of Hong Kong. \n\n(b) To commemorate our great teacher Lo Pan and to bring \n\nto light his teachings and to improve building business. \n\n[In one breath!] \n\n(c) A clause to the effect that the company will deal with all the property of the association, including sale, except Nos. 15-16 Ching Lin Terrace, named the \"Lo Pan Sin Shih Memorial Hall and Public Office\" which shall not be sold or mortgaged. \n\n(d) To explain and expand the Building Ordinance and Regulations of the Colony for the information of the members of the Association. \n\nAll the office bearers at the time of the incorporation and since have been building contractors or persons connected with the trade. \n\nFortunately for historians and other interested parties, the temple is full of tablets commemorating its origins and later repairs. Among these, the earliest dated the year of Kuang Hsu (1884-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207139, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "204 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nthere is a shrine at the rear inscribed Tao Kuang 27th year (1847-48). \n\nPoints of interest are the excellent granite work screen and balustrade along the whole front of the temple: the Shek Wan pottery decorations on the roof (Hsuan-Tung 1st year: 1908-09) and the large boulder inside the building which was probably the uncovered site of the original shrine. (There is a similar one inside the Lin Fa Kung temple at Tai Hang, which is of approximately the same age.) \n\n3) The Sui Tsing Pak temple at Tik Lung Lane. This is not housed in a temple building but in several houses in a terrace. The god is said to have been a man named Chan (**陈**) enobled as marquis (**侯**) who lived in the Sung dynasty and performed many good deeds. His title means the 'Pacifying Marquis' (**遂清侯**). The date of its establishment is not known, but several of the memorial boards inside the temple carry inscriptions in the late Kuang Hsü reign (1875-1908). Among them are boards presented by residents of 'The Thirty Houses' (the local Chinese name for Staunton Street, in Central District) and another by the community of Hung Hom village in Kowloon. \n\nThe upstairs rooms are devoted largely to the care and worship of memorial tablets, many with photographs of the deceased, placed there for a subscription by friends and relatives. This temple is of particular interest for the various art objects and antiquities kept inside the upper rooms, which make it almost a museum. They include paintings and porcelain. The interior decoration of the temple should also be noted especially the screens and fittings for the various altars upstairs which are probably at least 60 years old. \n\n4) Yuk Hai Kung Temple (**玉皇宫**), Stone Nullah Lane. This temple to Pak Tai, the god of the North (**北帝**), is again of early origin. According to an inscription above the entrance, the present structure dates from the first year of the T’ung Chih reign (1862-63). This is a large temple with side rooms which is still in an excellent state of repair. The building on the right of the temple is a public office or kung sor (**公所**) in which the temple management committee met to discuss the affairs of the temple and the neighbourhood. It was, as Carl Smith remarks, under the control of the Wanchai Kaifong from 1882 and before. \n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207147, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 218, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "212\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nsurvey. Sir E. Belcher, accordingly, landed on Monday, January 25, 1841, at the foot of Taipingshan, and on the hill, now occupied by the Chinese Recreation ground, Captain Belcher and his officers, considering themselves the bona fide first British possessors, drank Her Majesty's health with three cheers, the spot being thenceforth known as Possession Point. The Point remained an open space and came under the management of the Chinese Recreation Ground Committee created in 1890.\n\nIn 1887 there was a rearrangement of streets to the south of the Recreation Ground. With the change there was a renaming. The western terminus of Hollywood Road was shifted from the present Possession Street to what was known as Gap Street, so that Hollywood Road emptied into Queen's Road on the south side of the Recreation Ground rather than on its east side.\n\nOn the south side of old Gap Street across from the Chinese Recreation Ground the original St. Stephen's Anglican Church opened in 1866. Here also the Baxter Memorial School was built in 1872 in memory of Miss Sophia Harriet Baxter. She had come to Hong Kong in 1860 and until her death five years later established schools for Chinese, Eurasians and orphans. St. Matthew's Anglican Church now occupies a part of the original site granted to the Church in 1864.\n\nThe neighbourhood could have been regarded as a good missionary area for it was dominated by establishments devoted to pleasure. Nearby was a theatre, and the present Possession Street was lined with brothels in the nineteenth century. It was also, however, near a more sobering district.\n\nThe hillside between Possession Point and West Point was used as a Chinese burial ground. The I-tsz Temple, built to house commemorative tablets for Chinese residents who died without a family to remember them, and, temporarily, for those whose families were in their home villages in China, was behind Possession Point on Tai Ping Shan Street. It adjoined the burial ground and thus, in accordance with Chinese practice, was in a convenient location to be used as a depository for those who were about to die. Publicity regarding conditions at the temple started a movement to provide better medical services for the Chinese community. This resulted in the formation of Tung Wah Hospital. It was opened officially in 1872 across the street from the I-tsz Temple, occupying land that was a part of the old burial ground.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207323, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA\n\n83\n\nto find out the reason for the continual postponement of the marriage. He is characterised as a clown, and the fat wet-nurse appears also as a go-between, a funny character in many Chinese operas. This scene gives ample opportunity to display the vocabulary of comic jokes, movements and mime typical of the Chiuchow opera. He wears gay red costumes, and carries a fan which he handles like a juggler. In this scene the two are describing their long climb by walking in various ways in a circle, pausing to admire the scenery.\n\nThe wet-nurse asks the learned Hsin-tsai for the names and explanations of things seen along the way. \"And this mountain?\"\n\n\"It is called Han Mountain.\"\n\n\"And this river?\"\n\n\"It is called Han River.\"\n\n**\n\n\"And that ancestor temple over there?\" \"It is the Han Memorial Temple.\"\n\n\"Why is everything here called Han?\"\n\n\"Because the great scholar Han Yü was sent from the Capital to Chiuchow and gave his name to all these.\"*\n\n\"Oh, you and your father are like the great Han Yü.\"\n\n\"Oh you really think so? Why?\"\n\n\"Because Han Yü grabbed all the mountains, the river and the ancestor hall, and so on, and now you and your father grab the people's land.\"\n\nThe wet-nurse carries an umbrella and a red pao-fu# or a cloth-roll containing provisions for the journey, slung over the shoulder which is the traditional requisite to indicate travelling. On the Chinese stage luggage is never carried to indicate arrival, departure or travel, but a bamboo-umbrella or a red pao-fu, or both, are used instead.\n\nThe Hsiu-tsai is complaining about the Su family who are constantly postponing his marriage with their daughter, and is wondering what strange reason there may be behind it. They come to a gate erected by the emperor's order to honour a woman who has demonstrated her chastity under hard conditions. The Hsiu-tsai\n\n*For a notice of Han Yü (768-824) see Harbert A. Giles A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, London and Shanghai, 1898, pp. 254-256.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207557, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 325, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n317 \n\nin Wai Yeung. In the original residence there was neither a garden nor peach trees inside, and it was only through Ching-san's development and renovation that more and more facilities and amenities were provided, including memorial halls, pavilions, private studies, terraces, walls, ditches, lily ponds, floating pleasure boats, winding paths planted with plums, bamboos, orchids and all sorts of flowers. Being a calligraphy collector, Cheung Ching-san kept a large collection of genuine and valuable works of famous calligraphists like Tung Chi-chiang (董其昌), Chan Pak-sa (陳伯士), Lai Er-chiu (賴爾晉) etc. In addition to these, a large number of portraits of his ancestors, as well as those of scholars and generals of different dynasties, were inscribed on pavilion walls. \n\nPOSTSCRIPT \n\nFortunately, there are more surviving works than these two accounts, from the Hong Kong Wai Chau Association's Bulletin indicate. The lintel of the main door of the Pak Tai temple in Wan Chai, Hong Kong island, is stated to be by his hand. A further search would, I think, be sure to uncover others. There is also the interesting scroll shown in Plate 25. This comes from the Hung Shing temple in Cheung Chau (長洲) and it has been taken out at the lantern festival in the first lunar month and placed in a street shrine in adjoining Tai San Street (大新街) beyond living memory. It bears Cheung Yuk-tong's name and seal and is dated. It appears to have been presented by a man called Sun Ying-suet (孫映雪) to a friend Sai-hung whose surname is unknown, on the occasion of his mother's birthday. \n\nFrancis Sham has also translated this inscription—which is difficult to read and is therefore reproduced below—and has given the following rendering: \n\n壽域南山,日升月恆。今日從天運,兆泰龜鍾, 青童白髮,松齡歲月,書田後輩,九如多祝。碧桃献瑞,北堂萱草,精神龍馬,華堂偏集,美高門第。 \n\n世熊世兄大人雅正 \n\n孫映雪書 \n\nTo Sai Hung Esquire:- \n\nGreat rejoicing befalls from Heaven today on your mother's birthday, as constant and regular as the Sun and the Moon, and as...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207564, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 332, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n323 \n\nto the government for a lot on which to build a school. In granting the lot for charitable and educational purposes, it was stipulated that \"the school should be built on that portion of the ground furthest away from the front of the native temple which is opposite. The villagers have asked that no houses be erected immediately fronting the temple, but they could not object to a playground. The latter should be fenced around.” (C.S.O. No. 700 of 1885) In 1898, the Roman Catholic Church bought a large piece of land behind the village for a church and a school. The Canossian Sisters, however, already had two lots on Bulkely Street in 1894 where they conducted a school (No. 59 & 60).\n\n(c) The Kwun Yam (††) and Pak Tai (†) temples.\n\nAn old memorial board in the Kwun Yam Temple dated 1873-74 lists eleven individuals or shops who may tentatively be identified as the management committee.* I can only identify one, Li Shing Fat, listed as a rate-payer in 1875 and possibly as Lee A Fat on the 1867 squatter licence list. A Hop Shing shop is listed, and it is possible that the owner was Chan Hop Shing who appears on the 1873 rates list or Chang Hop Shing of the 1867 squatter list. Another possible identification might be the Kwong Lung shop with the Kwong \"Leong\" grocer in the 1884 Rate.\n\nIn 1896 the Temple Committee applied for the grant of a Crown Lease for the lot on which the building stood. It was noted that \"This Temple is a public temple, owned by the committee of Hung Hom. A notice was posted at Hung Hom on the 23rd (March, 1886) saying that anyone who objected to the issue of the proposed lease should report to the Registrar General within ten days. No communication has been made on the subject.... therefore recommend the issue of the lease.\" (C.S.O. No. 704 of 1896). In consequence, a lease was granted to Chung Kam Fuk, Chan Ying Cheung, and Ching Ki, Trustees. Of these, Chan Ying Cheung was a large property owner at Hung Hom who was also a wealthy contractor in Hong Kong. Upon his death, his will left his Hung Hom property to his sons.\n\nThe two named temples date from this early period and have survived: one of them in its original location and another on a new \n\n*The names are listed as follows:\n\n福隆號,兴有容,新順扣,勝扣廠,廣隆號,李富利,陳日新,怡興行,廣勝同,合勝號,李勝發。The board carries the large characters 法雨同沾and is dated 同治甲戌年仲春吉旦", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208163, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 202, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "186 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nrelating to it. The tour will include a visit to the Tin Hau Temple at Miu Kong, Tsuen Wan, where there is a memorial to the war and a tablet to the Tsuen Wan villagers who were killed. Also to the Kwan Tei Temple at Kam Tin, where part of the Shing Mun villagers were resettled in 1928, which contains a tablet to the Shing Mun villagers killed in the struggle. \n\nFrom the Tsuen Wan ferry pier, the party went first by coach to the Shing Mun reservoir, sometimes called the Jubilee Reservoir because of its completion at the time of King George V's jubilee year (1935). A picnic lunch on one of the vantage points with barbecue and sitting out facilities was followed by a talk by Dr. James Hayes, Tour Leader, on the history and livelihood of the former villagers who lived in the valley for nearly 300 years before their removal in 1928 for the reservoir project. \n\nAfter lunch, the party moved to Kam Tin where the main body of the Shing Mun people moved in 1928. Here our intrepid and helpful bus driver got into difficulties in a confined space between a USD refuse trailer and the gate to the school compound. He was rescued by the action of a group of Members who dismantled a tied up, projecting hawker cart whilst, with characteristic energy and flair, Professor Tony Reynolds directed the driver, conjuring up visions of problems expertly handled many years ago in far Yenan!* \n\nAfter this episode, we were welcomed by the village representative Mr. Cheng Siu-fong (*) and the Headmaster of the Shing Mun New Village School, Mr. Cheung Sze-man (X). We were entertained to tea in the school which has an interesting history. It bears the same name as the old school at Shing Mun Tai Wai built for the villagers by their leaders very many years before their removal in 1928. After the move to Kam Tin it was reprovisioned in the ancestral halls and in 1958, under a subsidized village school building programme supported by the Education Department and New Territories Administration, it transferred to the present six classroomed school building. \n\nOver tea our hosts told us something of the village history after the move to Kam Tin. The main difference was in livelihood, because their agricultural holdings by purchase and rent were only a fraction of those held at Shing Mun, inevitably since Kam Tin had been long densely settled by the Tang clan and later inhabitants. \n\n* See his article at pp 43-54 of this Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208727, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 184, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n157\n\nwould not be a recommendation; besides, he does not 'worship' other people's ancestors: he prays for their salvation. The author has overlooked a very important dimension of the cult for the dead, which shows that anthropology and sociology cannot explain all the aspects of phenomena such as these. I refer to the historical dimension. That Buddhist priests and nuns perform services for the deceased is historically conditioned. Ever since the T'ang dynasty, Pure Land Buddhism has had a strong impact on the Chinese population. Scared to be assigned to one of the dreadful courts of hell (or purgatory), devotees wished to be reborn in Amita's paradise (Sukhavati) and in imitation of rituals attributed to Monk Mulien, as expressed in a very popular legend, would ask the Buddhist priests to perform these rituals. Since the Chinese concepts of the after-life drastically changed after contact with Buddhism, and since the Pure Land school enjoyed such a universal popularity, it was only natural that the monks belonging to that school became the specialists in funeral rites. In other words, the custom of Buddhist personnel to perform funeral and memorial rites for the dead in China is not a result of their \"leaving home\" as the author claims.\n\nTo end chapter 3, the author establishes a series of temple types which cuts across the three religions and is based on different criteria, especially particularism vs. universalism. Here again there are great difficulties. The series for one thing is too symmetrical and looks therefore almost like an a priori and artificial construction. To be more specific, however, I feel that in the set of three primary types (group a) the Confucian temples are missing. In the set of derived types (or group b) I do not see the essential difference between the ancestral temples (group a) and the pseudo-ancestral temples. The differentiation between the monastery (group a) and the so-called bone temple (group b) again is arbitrary: bone temples are frequently attached to Buddhist monasteries; and are, in my opinion, just an alternative funeral ground. Families often have their private burial spots or graveyards. After cremation was introduced to China, storage of urns in pagodas became a fashionable way to substitute for graves, but that does not make those 'bone temples' a distinct type of temple. Finally the medium-shrines are also missing, although many of them are real temples, although privately owned.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208749, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 206, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN\n\n179\n\n2. The Participants\n\n(a) Confucianism\n\nWhether it ever was a religion or not, is no longer relevant and depends largely on the assumption that Confucianism can be identified with the state cult, the imperial cult of ancient and imperial China. Today it is no longer a religion in that sense although the old system of ethics is still adhered to and has been partially absorbed by the folk-religion.\n\nThere has been, however, an increase in the construction of temples: in the cities of Taichung and Kaohsiung large new temples have been built in the middle seventies. The old temples in Tainan and Changhua have been completely restored (1977-78), and since these enterprises are financed by the municipal governments, this movement of renewed attention for the great sage is sometimes interpreted as a reaction against the recent campaign of denigration of Confucius in China.\n\nActivities in the Confucian temples are, however, still minimal: they are rather memorial halls than centers of worship. Only once a year, on the birthday of the sage (since the republican period fixed on Sept. 28), a great sacrifice takes place in the temple premises. It is a grandiose event, based on ancient rites, but performed by government officials in the early hours of the morning.4\n\nOutside this yearly event, the temples are visited by tourists (especially in Taipei and Tainan), although other cultural activities are organized by the local temple committees: for instance, in Taichung a series of lectures was given on the interpretation of the I Ching.\n\n(b) Buddhism\n\nAlthough Buddhism has infiltrated folk religion in several ways, it is easier to define Buddhism as a distinct religious tradition. The revival of Buddhism, already started in China some decades ago, continues in Taiwan, but it seems to happen along traditional patterns rather than as break-away new religions.5\n\nAccording to a pamphlet about Taiwan published in May 1978 by the Chunghua Information Service, \"Followers of the Buddha are estimated at 8 million. More than 2,500 temples are attended", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208767, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n197 \n\nSix old muzzle-loading cannons, each fixed to a cemented base, can be seen on the main wall; two on the west and four on the east. They were selected from elsewhere, and mounted there as a memorial.26 \n\nOutside the Walled City, there are several brick houses which had been used as a hospital for the garrison and as dwellings of the garrison families. There had been a cemetery. However, its site cannot be found, and the old brick houses are now used as stores and pig-sties. \n\nSeveral old brick houses can be found at the mouth of the Tung Chung stream. They are supposed to be the guard-houses and the ammunition store of the Shek She Fort.2 The position of the Fort has long been forgotten. Recently, rubble walls are found on a knoll near the Tung Chung Ferry Pier. The walls are now in ruins.28 This is likely to be one of the fortresses of the Shek She Fort.29 \n\nHong Kong. March 1980. \n\nANTHONY SIU Kwok-kin \n\nNOTES \n\n1 It is called Fan Lau (separate the flow) because the promontory lies on a place which separates the waters of the Pearl River and the Pacific Ocean. \n\n* The promontory has the shape of a chicken-wing, thus gaining the name Kai Yik Kok. Kai Yik in Chinese means 'chicken-wing'. \n\n* The promontory is also called Yuen To Shan, because ships which came from the west to the Pearl River used it as a landmark. 'Yuen To' in Chinese means 'sailing from afar'. \n\n* There is a village called the Fan Lau Village situated by the Fan Lau Sai Wan, or West Bay. \n\n* The Fan Lau Tung Wan is also called the Miu Wan or Temple Bay because there is a Tin Hau Temple, rebuilt in the Hsien Fung reign (1851-1861). \n\n• It was called the Kai Yik Fort, as recorded in the San On Yuen Chi 1819 edition and the Kwong Tung Tung Chi 1822 edition. \n\n1968. \n\nsee Armando M. De Silva's \"Fan Lau and its Fort\", JHKBRAS 8;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208772, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "202\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nsister, now a spirit, had proffered good advice, he built a folk religion shrine in her honour. Her cult thrived, so much so that her image is revered by Ch'aochou emigrants in most areas of South Thailand and, so the story goes, also in Singapore and in Nakorn Sri Thammarat.\n\nThe Bangkok god carver claims that Miss Lin is the only Chinese deity with a special urn donated by the King of Thailand who is well known for his tolerance towards and encouragement for other religions. He is said to have bowed in her honour before her image which consists of a simple, seated country girl with bare feet and large hands, dressed in working clothes Plate 3. Her festival is celebrated in her temples each year on her birthday, the 15th of the first lunar month.\n\nHong Kong.\n\nMarch, 1980.\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nTHE TEMPLE OF THE SUPREME RULER,\n\nNEAR SUNG WONG TOI, KOWLOON*\n\nIn the thirteenth century A.D. the Southern Sung Emperor Tuen Chung was attacked by the Mongol Conquerors of the North. Driven from his provisional capital at Hang Chow, the Emperor retreated southwards through Fukien and on to Kwangtung province, stopping temporarily at more than 30 places on his way. Besides the well known Palace at Ngai Mun in the San Wui district of Kwangtung, that at Sau Shan by the Pearly River has been fully described in the Imperial Records which were published in the Yuen Dynasty. Such buildings provide evidence of the efforts of the Sung Emperor and his ministers to make that stand against their enemies which has long been cherished in the people's minds.\n\nIn the spring of 1277 during the second year of his reign, the Emperor left Kam Tsz Mun of Wai Chau district in Kwangtung and reached Mui Wai. In the fourth moon he arrived at Kwun Fu Cheung, a district which included present day Kowloon, the New\n\n*This heading and the following text are taken from a memorial tablet erected in the Urban Council's Rest Garden at Lomond Road, Kowloon, site of this former old temple. A Chinese tablet is also provided.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208874, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "KEITH G. STEVENS\n\nserve Buddhist devotees and which have Buddhist images on altars in their halls and offices. These include Buddhist schools, clinics, book-stores and libraries, homes for the aged and vegetarian food shops and restaurants.\n\nBuddhist temples and monasteries are not only more airy, lighter and cleaner than the Daoist folk temples, their images are larger, gold-lacquered and usually distinctive. However, there are the exceptions, few though they be, of small, dark and, because they are old, more drab Buddhist establishments. Some images too can be multi-coloured, though very few are of any material other than wood.\n\nExclusively Buddhist establishments are few and far between, the majority having an altar or two containing folk religion deities. Quite a number of the Buddhist temples were first instituted in Hong Kong by a single wealthy Chinese who recommended or selected the specific deity or deities to be placed on the altars. The donation of funds to help found a monastery is not only a move to obtain merit for the donor, or for perpetual prayers to be said by the monks in the Memorial Hall of the monastery for the donor himself or for his parents or wife, but is often a gesture to display the importance of the donor (it entitles his or her name to be engraved and displayed at the entrance). Once the monastery has been built the flow of funds from devotees enables it to flourish, but when devotees disappear the monastery too withers. Once the decision to found a Buddhist temple has been made, a board of directors is established and executive decisions are then made by them. (The same is true of Daoist and folk religion temples). In Buddhist and Daoist establishments a priest is invited to become the abbot, and nuns, monks and lay men and women are gradually enrolled. Abbots and hermits choose attractive and secluded spots on remote mountain sides to escape from the tumult of life and to devote themselves to quiet meditation. Founded by either fervent monks or wealthy benefactors, they were usually built on sites which were both aesthetic and practical because, in addition to being a place of meditation, in old China travellers in remoter areas found it necessary as well as agreeable to stay overnight in monasteries. (Plate 1)\n\nThree very distinctive areas in Hong Kong's New Territories were all sufficiently remote to satisfy the \"hermit\" in the monks.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208886, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "20\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nAlthough clan or ancestral halls and temples are usually handsome buildings located near the centre of a village, many now old and rarely used have been permitted to fall into disrepair and are derelict. These memorial halls contain only the ancestral tablets of the senior member of each generation of the clan whose surname appears over the main entrance of the hall or complex. Some villages have two and even three such temples, dedicated to each of the clans dwelling within their bounds. (Plates 10 and 11).\n\nThe memorial and ancestral tablets of the man-in-the-street (personal ancestral tablets) are placed on either the private household altar of the family or the shelves of the memorial halls of Buddhist or Daoist monasteries and temples. Personal ancestral tablets are rarely retained for more than three generations, whereas the tablets of the public ancestors of the clan are retained as far back as the first ancestor who moved to the area in which they are presently situated.\n\nLike the small temples, the clan halls are usually cluttered with agricultural equipment used only when the season comes around. None of the clan halls is spotless, and often the plaques, panels, mirrors and other decorations are so covered in accumulated filth that they are hard to decipher. The excuse given is that the lineage is too poor to employ a temple keeper and by implication there is no one else who should keep it clean, so the halls remain decrepit and forlorn.\n\nFamily and clan temples very rarely contain images, particularly as Cantonese do not carve images of their ancestors as did the people of Hunan and Fujian provinces. When family and clan temples do contain deities, these are represented by either a framed print usually of the bodhisattva Guan Yin or a small image of a popular deity placed there by a devotee who either had no place for it at home or had a misguided notion to donate such an image to the clan (Plate 12). This happened in a small clan temple near Sheung Shui where the tolerant members of the clan have ignored the deity and have left it there to avoid hurting the donor's feelings.\n\nShrines\n\nShrines almost certainly pre-date temples and in their basic form have remained essentially unchanged for hundreds, if not, thousands of years. A considerable percentage of Chinese ritual is performed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209043, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 205, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "BOOK LISTS\n\n173\n\nperhaps the case.* A list of Canton and Hong Kong newspapers is included in Roswell S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press 1800-1912 (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1933).\n\n(n) Subscription books\n\nThese are not strictly speaking “books,” but subscription lists bound in the same Chinese-style format. They either promote an object like the reconstruction, repair or extension of a temple, school or charitable hospital, the repair of a bridge or road, or in Republican times the financing of a militia or a self-managing local government or commercial or other association. Whatever the cause, a full subscription list was usually printed upon the conclusion of the work or the closing of the lists; or in the case of temples, buildings and public works often placed in the building or nearby, on a stone tablet. The short list which follows is merely a sample.\n\nThere were many more subscription books in handwritten format: I saw these when District Officer South 1957-62 as they were sometimes brought in for endorsement, and I have collected others.\n\nSection B BOOKS PROVIDED FOR AND BY SPECIALISTS\n\nI have not attempted to provide any listing of material in this huge field, save for the specialists in family rites and social etiquette, whose stock of knowledge seems mostly to have been derived from the hand-written volumes which researchers in Hong Kong have chosen to style “village hand-books”. If not actually derived from the printed books listed in sub-sections (b), (d), (f) and (g) above, their contents were similar in nature. A detailed comparison has yet to be made, and is an important scholarly task.\n\nI wish to thank Mr. Peter Yeung, Curator of the Hung On-To Memorial Library (Hong Kong Collection) of the University of Hong Kong for his great help in preparing these lists.\n\nHong Kong, 1982\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n* A fragment of a Hsuan-tung issue of a Canton newspaper (1909) was given me by a Tai O (Lantau) shopkeeper, and I recall seeing a newspaper that came to light at Pui O (also Lantau), behind the plaster of a decaying temple last repaired in 1914.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209976, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 235, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "213\n\nA commemorative tablet is to be found in the ruined building, and neither of my elderly informants can recall this period: but during this time it is said that the temple continued to be managed by the Chu family of Tai Hom because of their ownership of the land. The 1887 date given in the Kwun Yam temple door inscription presumably gives the date of this rebuilding.\n\nA change took place in the opening years of this century, when my informants were boys. The clan uncle who was then looking after the Kwun Yam temple found work as a foreman at the Tai Tam Tuk water scheme on Hong Kong island, and handed over its charge to a Taoist monk. This man, described as “a very capable person”, decided to build a second temple, and went to the Nam Pak Hong (Nam Pak Hong) or group of merchants trading overseas from Bonham Strand, then the main business centre of Hong Kong’s Chinese community, to raise funds. He was successful in collecting sufficient money, and the new, or Tung Shan, temple was built in 1904.1 Again, no memorial tablet can be found.\n\nWhen the monk died a few years after the construction of the new temple a further change of management occurred. The clan uncle was still working away from home, and he and the other elders of Tai Hom handed control to another man. This person was not from the same village. He lived in Po Kong (#), one of the older and more important Kowloon villages, settled in the Ming Dynasty or earlier. However, he was a Hakka like the Tai Hom villagers, though he lived in a Punti village.\n\nThe reasons for his acceptability to the Chu clan and to the leaders of the wider community that took an interest in the two temples were stated to me by the Chu elders as follows: “The Kwun Yam temple belonged not just to we Chus, but to the thirteen villages of Kowloon, and Mr. Chan [the new permanent manager’s name] was well-off, elderly and respected by local people”. This demonstrates the progress that the temple had made in the affections of Kowloon people and its growing territorial influence.\n\nThe new manager was born in Kwei-shin (歸善) (now Hui-yang (惠陽)) in 1855. He was a building contractor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210935, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 285, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "268\n\nChau Li-ping's house, held on one, and possibly, two floors. Again, I did not ask the number of tables, but the place was packed. I saw no sign of entertainment in the restaurant but there was a large stage on the western waterfront. There was a capacity crowd there, and it was very difficult to squeeze through to another performance further on. The loud-speakers were good, and very loud, and the performance was a traditional Cantonese opera in high-quality costume. The show had cost the organizers $1,600 for two days. Further along, the Chung Hing Street (#26) association's stage was much duller by comparison, though traditional. The stage costumes and loud-speaker system were of poorer quality but I understood that this two-day show had cost only a little less, at $1,400.\n\nWe then visited the Chiu Chow Association ($45ƒ€) in its new (1969) premises. The place was packed, and we were on the third and top floor where there is an altar with spaces for memorial tablets. We ate again, and an auction of lanterns and other items was in progress during the forty or more minutes that we spent there. There was apparently no entertainment or stage performance, but the Wai Chiu Association (€), which is allied with this much newer association, was giving a Cantonese opera performance at the recreation ground at the Pak Tai temple. An outside altar had been set up for the Pak Tai god, at which kau pao2 were being handed in and donations registered.\n\nBesides the Chung Hing Street festivities, some of the other street associations were also celebrating the day. The Pak She Street (ii) and San Hing Street (#) Associations' premises were gaily decorated and lit up, and an altar and kau pao were seen in the San Hing Street premises. I did not have time to look closely into the Pak She office.\n\nThe Tai San Street (#) people have no premises and had no stage performances, but they had erected their usual lo tang pang (M) to which the small carrying image (17) of Hung Shing (#) from the nearby temple had been brought. This matshed is of particular interest. Inside is a red and white scroll with couplet dated Hsien Feng Z year (1859-1960) written by Cheung Yuk-tong (3FF) who, as we know from other inscrip-\n\nPage 285\n\nPage 286", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211038, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "74\n\nCONFUSED GODS: \n\nHUANG DAXIAN (WONG TAI SIN) AND HUANG YEREN \n\nIntroduction \n\nAT MT. LUOFU \n\nLARS RAGVALD AND GRAEME LANG* \n\n2\n\nSince 1984, we have been studying the history of the cult of Huang Daxian (Wong Tai Sin)1 in Hong Kong and in South China. Initially, our primary concern was to explain the rapid growth in popularity of this god in Hong Kong, but we have also searched for the roots of this cult in Guangdong, where the first author in 1985 discovered the ruins of several temples to Huang Daxian built earlier this century. In the course of this research, we have encountered some intriguing variations in beliefs about this god.\n\n3\n\nIn a separate paper, we describe two cases where oral accounts regarding the god Huang Daxian differ sharply from the official accounts published by the Sese Yuan (Sik Sik Yuen), the organization which manages the god's temple in Kowloon.† Both of these oral accounts seem to have been borrowed from other local traditions, a process familiar to students of folklore. Conditions such as those which can be found in Hong Kong may favour this kind of mixing and mingling of traditions, all the more so as there are few traditions about the god Huang Daxian which are widely known.\n\nIn more recent research in China, we have observed further instances of the mingling of traditions about the god Huang Daxian.* Many people in Guangdong province are aware of the\n\nLars Ragvald teaches at the Institute of Oriental Languages at the University of Stockholm, Sweden and Graeme Lang at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University, Canada.\n\n+ Editor's note: \"Official and oral traditions about Hong Kong's newest god”, at pp. 93-99 of this issue of the journal, was originally scheduled for earlier publication. The editor regrets any inconvenience to the authors caused by the delay.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211062, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "98\n\nNOTES\n\nResearch for this paper was carried out in Hong Kong in the Spring of 1984. We would like to thank John Dolfin, Director of the Universities Service Centre, for the use of that invaluable facility during our research, and John Ashton of Memorial University for some helpful suggestions. Parts of the paper were included in a presentation at a colloquium of the Sociology Department, Hong Kong University, May, 1984.\n\n1 \"Wong Tai Sin\" is the most common transliteration in Hong Kong of the god's name. The pinyin transliteration is Huang Daxian. Here, the common Hong Kong transliterations are used, except for place-names in China such as Guangzhou (Canton), Guangdong (Kwangtung), and Chejiang.\n\n2 The cases to be described are here termed motifs in the sense used by Allen and Montell (1981:38-9), who note that \"the characteristic feature of these migratory narrative elements is their transferability among stories about different events or persons.\"\n\n3 This is the only Wong Tai Sin temple known to most believers in Hong Kong, and the prominence of the god in Hong Kong has occurred entirely as a result of the success, for various historical reasons, of this one temple. There is also a private Wong Tai Sin temple in Kowloon, as well as a small private shrine in Macau, but they have had no influence on the popularity of the god.\n\nbut\n\nSome temples in Guangzhou were indeed destroyed early in this century by Nationalists rather than by the elements (see for instance Rhoads, 1975:255). Perhaps our informant's account of the destruction of the temple was a tradition dating back to these events.\n\n5 The fact that the icon of the god brought to Hong Kong from Guangdong is a picture rather than a statue suggests, as we argue in another paper (Lang and Ragvald, 1988), that the god was worshipped in Guangdong as the patron god of a family herbal medicine business (see Day, 1969, on these \"paper gods\" and their role in family worship).\n\nThe organization which manages the temple, the Sik Sik Yuen, has published the official history of the temple in commemorative brochures, especially: Sik Sik Yuen, 1971; 1981; 1982,\n\n7 Ogura (1980) argues that the drifted deity tradition evolved from an earlier tradition of belief in periodic visits by gods from their abodes beyond the sea. There is no such tradition in the Hong Kong area.\n\n1 The temple's version of the Taoist hermit's life on earth before he became a god is in the form of a short autobiography, supposedly dictated by the god to a Taoist. It appears on a plaque in the temple, and also in brochures published by the Sik Sik Yuen. It has been discovered by Dr. Shiu-hon Wong of Hong Kong University that this account follows closely a capsule biography of the hermit written in the 4th century A.D. as part of the collection \"Biographies of Immortals\", by Ge Hong. This literary version holds that the Taoist hermit Wong, while herding sheep in Chejiang province, discovered a method of achieving immortality. He also manifested his power by turning a hillside of boulders into sheep. These two achievements figure prominently in the temple's \"autobiography\" of the god.\n\nThe story of a saint whose body remains uncorrupted and even sweet-smelling long after burial is a common motif in Christian legends. Loomis (1948:54) cites about two hundred instances.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211192, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 253, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "228\n\nunmet need. It was pointed out by one speaker at the meeting: \"We are turning out and shall continue to turn out young men more and more advanced, I hope, as the years go by\" here he was referring principally to Central Government School (later Queen's College).\n\n\"But,\" he continued, \"we are not providing in the same ratio suitable wives for them.\" In his view educated men would profit by having educated wives.\n\nThere was also another dimension to the education of females. \"We must also consider that the wife is mother of the future generations, and it would be a great thing, if we were sufficiently ripe for it, to educate the mothers of the future generations who are to dwell among us, and a great thing for the people of the country.\"\n\nIn his day, education for women meant preparation for their lives as wives and mothers, not as in our day for careers in business, the professions, industry or the arts.\n\nIn 1893, the Hongkong philanthropist, Emanuel Raphael Belilios, gave money to establish a middle school for girls. Today it is located on Tin Hau Temple Road.\n\nAnother memorial scheme discussed was a home to care for girls and women rescued from brothels. Many of these had been purchased and their status was not far from slavery. The buying and selling of children and women was prohibited in Hongkong, but its control was difficult. The demand for girls was great enough to encourage kidnapping in China and their transportation to Hongkong or to overseas Chinese communities.\n\nIn an effort to check these abuses and protect women and girls, the Po Leung Kuk had been organised in 1880. It was promoted by leading Chinese merchants and had been approved by the Government.\n\nNo provision had been made at that time, however, for the housing of those who came under the Society's protection. The intention was to send them back to their homes in China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211766, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "156\n\nTsz people controlling the pass and the Cheungs controlling the river crossing; no one group had total control of the road; but if the Luk Yeuk controlled both the pass and the bridge, then the Shap Yeuk's interests could well have been at risk. Lin Ma Hang of the Shap Yeuk actually fought alongside Wong Pui Ling; the rest of the Shap Yeuk was probably friendly to the Cheungs, or at least neutral in the dispute. The Sze Yeuk were allied with the Tangs in their opposition to the establishment of the Tai Po New Market by the Tsat Yeuk; as is to be expected, Fanling and the Luk Yeuk supported the Tsat Yeuk.\n\n32\n\n33\n\nIt is unclear if the inscription still survives or not.\n\nThey were Man Fuk-ting (Tong Fong, Chairman); Lei Yi-wa (Lei Uk); Chan Kwok-cheung (Ping Yeung); Tang King-shiu (Au Ha or Wang Kong Ha); Law King-fan (Law Fong); To Kan-yeung (Tin).\n\n14 Between 1911 and 1924 Chan Ping-kei (Chau ...) and Chan Tai [or Ting]-cheung ... (+ [Chinese characters unknown]) were managers, and as such appear on the Land Memorials.\n\n35\n\nIt was put up by Lin Tong and Wang Kong Ha villages, in \"The Shing Ping She Shrine of Righteousness\".ĦTH, Faure, Historical Inscriptions, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 850.\n\n36\n\n37\n\nFaure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 104-105.\n\nChau Tin village owned a small temple, or San Teng (神廳), as did Kan Tau Wai and Law Fong. Kan Tau Wai in addition owned a small house as a meeting place for its elders. None of these communal facilities had any income-producing land attached to them, except for the Law Fong and Kan Tau Wai temples, which owned 0.05 and 0.12 acres respectively. The Ping Yuen temple manager was registered only for the single temple building, but not for any income-producing land, although the temple did buy a piece of land (0.72 acres) from a Ping Che villager in 1906. See DD82, houselot CT20; lot 759; DD78, lot 1158; DD82, houselot KTW13; houselots PC1-3; Memorial 2744.\n\nMemorials 24058 (20 April 1913), 27471 (4 June 1914), 45919 (7 December 1920); see also Memorial 17779 (17 October 1911) for the succession of the She to a house at Tong Fong.\n\n19\n\nFor the Po Tak Old Alliance, see Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 128-140.\n\n40\n\n41\n\nSee R.G. Groves, \"The Origins of Two Market Towns'', loc.cit.\n\nFor the Tung Ping Kuk and the Tung Wo Kuk, see Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 128-140.\n\n42 (唔出嫁嘅女)\n\n43\n\n44\n\nSung Hok-p'ang, Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Kam Tin, op. cit.\n\nIt should be noted that these nunneries are often called Tsz (寺) in ordinary speech and documents. This character strictly means \"monastery\", but, in this area, this does not necessarily imply that the religious living there were men. Thus the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is almost always so called, as in the document printed in the Appendix. The use of the more correct character Am (庵, 'nunnery') is almost entirely limited to Ch'ing official documents (especially the County Gazetteer) and, sometimes, on bells.\n\n45\n\n46\n\nloc.cit.\n\nSee Faure, Luk and Ng, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 669. It is called Miu (廟, \"temple\") in Hsin An County Gazetteer, 1922, ch'uan 4 and 7, pages 49-50 and 82 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, and in the 1688 Gazetteer.\n\n47 Ling To is called Tsz (寺) in the Hsin An County Gazetteer, 1819, at ch'uan 18 and 21, pages 148 and 174 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, and, given the care with which...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211960, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 375, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "350\n\nworld by first fixing them in the arms of a mounted paper horse rider known as gung-chou, who served as a messenger, and then burning the three (horse, rider, and memorial) together. The other form, known as bong, was posted in a rite on the main day of the festival on a wall, and remained there until the conclusion of the ritual.\n\nThe scripture chanting/Repentance session took place before the Three Pure Ones three times a day. The manual used was the common Jade Emperor's Repentance Scripture. The sessions were very short. The one I timed lasted only fifteen minutes. The other daily rite was the procession of offerings, which started at the Taoist altar with worship of the Three Pure Ones, then visited all the five faan posts, all the temporary altars and the Jau and Wong Temple, the guardian gods of the paang, and the yau-saan. The procession included flags and banners, and was preceded by a man holding a \"spirit summoning flag\". At each spot it stopped at, the priests briefly chanted and made offerings.\n\nThe other (and longer) rites involved a lot of chanting and singing, which, in many cases, nobody could hear clearly. The amplified music of the puppet theatre drowned out any other sound. The only exception was a scholar of religion from the Chinese University of Hong Kong who had the high priest carry a wireless microphone for him and who could therefore listen to the priests' words from a headphone radio and compare them with the manual. My descriptions of the Taoist rites, therefore, are often interpretations of what I saw and heard on the basis of past experience and manuals. 63\n\nE. The Participants List in the Taoist Rites\n\nOf the elements of the rites, the villagers probably knew most about the Memorials in their different forms. The women villagers in general knew less about the festival (or they pretended to). When I asked some elderly ladies at the ritual site what da-jiu was all about, they explained that it was heui-lok promised to Jau and Wong, to commemorate them. They suggested that I should ask elderly men instead. It was men who knew more about these things. The knowledge was handed down from one generation to another. But I overheard, during the opening rite, the same group of elderly ladies asking themselves how many priests were reading the Memorial (the one to be burnt). They observed that there was too much noise for them to hear the reading. They explained to me that the names of all the villagers (yan-hau) were being read. The priests\n\nPage 375\n\nPage 376", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211972, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 387, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "362\n\nassociated with lion dance groups. The ritual representatives held incense burners, but the joss sticks in them were not lighted from the beginning to the end of the procession.\n\nMr. Dang Jik-Wai, an elder of Tai Hong Wai, with an outsider who had lived in Kam Tin since shortly after the war and was employed by the rural committee, led the procession. Mr. Dang had a list on a piece of paper of the gods to worship. The procession left the main ritual area where the participants had been waiting since the end of the rite of posting the Memorial.\n\nThey first stopped at the Wa-Bou altar for the God of Earth and Grain at Shui Tau. From there they proceeded to the Tin-Hau Temple at Shui Mei and worshipped at the Temple, and two nearby altars for the God of Earth and Grain. The procession then turned south to Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall at Shui Tau, and worshipped at the Ancestral Hall, and at the Hung-Sing Temple. Next they worshipped at another altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shui Tau, the Yi-Dai School (i.e. Man-Cheung Temple), and the altar for the God of Earth and Grain for the Mui Jai Yun section of the village.\n\nThey entered Kam Hing Wai and worshipped at the san-teng, the earth god's place at the former village gate, as well as the altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe party proceeded to Kam Tin Shi, where they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. They intended to enter Yau-Leun Tong to worship too. But it was locked and no one in the procession had the key. So they made the offerings at the door. They then entered Sa Bui Leng and worshipped at the ruin of a former san-teng and the god of the well.\n\nThey continued the procession to Ko Po, where they worshipped the God of the well, the God of the village gate, and an altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe procession turned back and continued towards Kat Hing Wai, where they worshipped at its altar for the God of Earth and Grain outside the village wall, and then entered the village and worshipped at the san-teng. The procession then took Kam Sheung Road to the san-teng (?) of Naam-Teng.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212657, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "192\n\nA CHINESE MEMORIAL HALL\n\nDEDICATED TO\n\nWANG TE LU\n\nA CLAN HERO\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nAncestral halls are the family or clan memorial chapels which every respectable clan or family throughout China had, and in Taiwan and amongst overseas Chinese communities in South-east Asia, still has. Known as Tz'u-t'ang they are fine buildings in honour of family ancestors whose tablets stand in regular order on the main altar according to their respective generations.\n\nThere were, however, also the memorial halls each dedicated to nationally renowned worthies, individuals who had served their emperors faithfully to the end of their days and had had conferred upon them posthumous honours in addition to any conferred during their lives; they were also canonised with a title which, added to the family name, reverently designated their memory.\n\nNeither the ancestral temples nor the memorial halls to nationally renowned worthies should be confused with the Portrait Gallery of Heroes of Hall of Worthies, Ling-yen Ke, in which stood the tablets and portraits of heroes who assisted in the founding of a dynasty and supported it in the succeeding years.\n\nA typical example of special temples erected in the memory of a renowned worthy were those built in, amongst other places, Peking, Tientsin, Shanghai, Nanking and Soochow, in honour of one of the most famous Chinese of the nineteenth century, Li Hung-chang, a statesman and diplomat [1823-1901]. He was posthumously granted by the Ch'ing emperor the honorary title of Grand Tutor, the name Wen-chung, the hereditary rank of Marquis of the first class, whilst his name was entered in the Temple of Eminent Statesmen.\n\nYet another form of honour, in this case of a comparatively minor mandarin albeit probably the most senior of all Taiwanese during the Ch'ing dynasty, is to be seen reflected down the side walls of the shrine hall of one such Clan temple, the Wang Memorial Chapel in rural central Taiwan. The walls are covered in memorabilia dedicated", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212658, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "193\n\nto and honouring the memory of Wang Te-lu, an Imperial fleet commander who helped clear the Straits of Formosa of pirates during the early years of the nineteenth century. The Wang Clan Temple in T'ai-pao village in Chia I county in central Taiwan was an elegant building first built during the late 19th century by the proud clan whose surname Wang Te-lu bore. It was rebuilt in 1979, this time a modern metal frame construction retaining the comparatively small single hall in which there is but one altar on which stands one large multi-ancestor tablet and three ancestral tablets. The flanking walls bear texts, with Wang Te-lu referred to in a number of the captions as Wang Ta-jen, i.e. His Excellency Wang, and paintings of Wang Te-lu stage left and of his primary wife stage right.\n\nAlthough we know little about Wang's early life apart from what has been retrieved from local folk memory which, as with all family recollections, is highly subjective and probably exaggerated out of all reality, we do have official records of the highlight of his life. This \"five minutes of glory\", depicted in a painting hanging in his Memorial Chapel illustrating the incident, was his victory over pirates who had been causing immense and terrible problems up and down the coasts of the southern provinces of Chekiang, Fukien and Kuangtung since the late 1790s. One pirate fleet in particular had sailed the Fukien coast under its dreaded Fukienese leader, Ts'ai Ch'ien. The Chinese Imperial naval commander, Li Ch'ang-keng, commanding the joint fleets of Fukien and Chekiang province, determined to suppress them, successfully defeated the pirates on a number of occasions but was killed in action in 1808, following which his two subordinate admirals, of whom Wang was one, were entrusted with continuing the task. Wang, in charge of the Imperial Fukien fleet, together with the Chekiang fleet under Admiral Ch'iu, fought the major battle in September 1808 near the Tai-chou islands off the Chekiang coast. The pirate fleet was destroyed with Ts'ai Ch'ien going down with his ship.\n\nWang was born and named Te-lu, literally meaning \"To become prosperous and happy\", in 1771, the thirty-fifth year of the emperor Ch'ing Ch'ien Lung, in Kiangsi's provincial city of Nanch'ang, and in later years acquired the courtesy name of Pai-ch'u, literally \"All Honours are concentrated within Him\"; and the literary name, Yü-feng, literally meaning \"The Jade Peak\". He died at the age of 71 in 1842 on the Pescadores, an archipelago in the middle of the Straits of Formosa, and having been borne in honour back to Taiwan, was buried in Hsin-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212740, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "34\n\nhad a head of steam and wrote several pages of detailed description on one particular theme, usually with an educational value aimed at foreigners in China. One in particular was his portrayal of a Chinese banquet, consisting not only of various menus, but seating plans, courtesies and the role of the servants.\n\nHis Promotion of Western Education\n\nSince 1868, Mesny claimed, he had had an inclination to do something towards dispelling some of the gross darkness that prevailed amongst the Chinese. In 1870 he established a small day school for boys and girls in a temple called the Yu-huang Kung [The Temple of the Jade Emperor], which served as a club house for the people of the Hu-kuang provinces who resided in Kuei-yang. He imported some school books which he considered suitable and paid a Chinese teacher to teach the children during the four years of his residence in Kuei-yang.\n\nMesny in later years had interviews with senior Chinese mandarins with a view to promoting western sciences and other subjects of study for examinations in China. He also claimed that he had persuaded a Chinese Viceroy to submit a memorial on educational reform to the throne and that this was the start of such reform. The reforms were abolished by the Empress Dowager in 1898.\n\nMesny and Women\n\nDespite the genuinely colourful life he led in China, his experiences living with the Taiping rebels, his service with the Szechuan Force în Kueichou and his treks across much of the country; when we come to his descriptions of his love life with Chinese ladies, although they may have been real and authentic, for the most part they read like episodes out of a modern pulp novelette. This may be due to a possible inability to describe them without a modicum of exaggeration or 'editing' or, though unlikely, they may have been figments of his imagination. There is little doubt that he was red-blooded and normal, and as a single man in foreign parts with few if any women of his own race or culture it was the understood thing for expatriate westerners to have a local female partner. He frequently wrote of pretty women at the roadside during his journeys across China who attracted him or, more to the point, were attracted by him. However, the exact measure of his intimacy with any but his wives is destined to remain tantalizingly obscure.\n\nCorrected minor OCR errors, reformatted text into paragraphs, and corrected \"în\" to \"in\" for consistency and correctness.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212855, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 164, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "149\n\nA PEEK BACKWARDS INTO\n\nTHE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF SHANGHAI*\n\n(This paper is dedicated to the memory of the late Mr Hans Diestel)\n\nWEI PEH TI\n\nIntroduction\n\nJewish traders were among the first foreigners to come to work and live in Shanghai when the port was first opened to foreign trade in November 1843. Despite the important role a number of these Jewish residents played in Shanghai as well as in international commerce at that time and for a century to follow, scholars are just beginning to focus their attention on this community. David Kranzler's dissertation at Yeshiva University in New York on the Jewish refugees from Europe who arrived at Shanghai after 1938, Japanese, Nazis and Jews: the Jewish Refugee Community at Shanghai, is the only generally known work that has been published in English.1 Vilhelm Meyer was a Danish Jew who started a small trading house in Shanghai importing goods from his native Denmark at the beginning of the century, and who eventually sold the company, by then a commercial and industrial conglomerate of 1,800 employees, to General Electric in 1935. His life and work is being researched by his grandson, Christopher Bo Bramsen.2 Bramsen, however, is writing a personal biography of his grandfather, emphasizing his work in Shanghai as a Dane, not a treatise on a Jewish individual in Shanghai. On the other hand, two doctoral dissertations on the Sephardic community are being undertaken at this time, one at the London School of Economics, and one at the University of London.\n\n*The suggestion for a paper on the Jewish community in Shanghai was first made in 1987 by Dr Jewish Diestel and Mrs Paula Sandfelder when the Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Recreation Club of Hong Kong invited me to give the first Ezekiel Abraham Memorial Lecture. Subsequently, I have given similar talks to the student body of the Chapin School and at Temple Emmanuel in New York City, as well as to Jewish groups on Long Island. I am grateful to my many friends for showing interest in the subject, and am especially flattered to be consulted by otherwise intelligent scholars who wish to work on the subject of the Shanghai Jews seriously. I would like to thank the Jewish Library in Hong Kong for letting me consult their collections; my appreciation also goes to the Rev Carl Smith for generously sharing his numerous index cards and his encyclopaedic knowledge.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212868, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "162\n\nIt was clear when I gave the Ezekiel Abraham Memorial Lecture in 1987 that strong feelings still remained,\n\nKranzler, 745.\n\n7 The Hankow Daily News July 13, 1917,\n\n1.\n\nStatistics differ. Even the Encyclopaedia Judaica gives different numbers on different pages. Without scrutinizing temple rolls, it is difficult to ascertain the number of Jews in Shanghai at a given time, but it can be estimated to be less than 2,000 from 1920 through the early 1930s.\n\nDavid Kranzler gave the following figures: On 25 March, 1934, there were 1,671 Jewish adults and children in Shanghai (881 male and 790 female), including Sephardic Jews as well as the Ashkenazi community. A little more than ten years later, 14,245 persons (8,283 male, 5,962 female) were classified as Jewish refugees in Shanghai in November 1944. Of these, 8,114 had come from Germany, 1,248 from Poland, 3,942 from Austria, and 236 from Czechoslovakia. Between 1939 and 1946, there had been 418 births, 366 marriages, 104 divorces, and 1,726 deaths among the Jewish population in Shanghai.\n\n40 Hans and Lala Diestel, respectably bourgeois before the Japanese occupation, ground assorted grains in their living-room by hand, using a Chinese millstone, selling the meal to the Red Cross for cash. Later on, they operated a factory making shoes, employing Jewish refugees. 'There was never any problem with raw materials,” related the indefatigable Mr Diestel, who was born in Tsingtao, 'because the Japanese thought that I was German.' Betty Peh-t'i Wei, Shanghai, Crucible of Modern China, Hong Kong, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, 252.\n\n\" Conversation with Ezekiel Abraham in Hong Kong. Also, see Joseph and Lynn Silverstein, 'David Marshall and Jewish Emigration from China', China Quarterly, (London 1979).\n\n12 The New York Times, 27 February, 1983.\n\n13\n\nOld Chronicle of Hong Kong November 1870.\n\n14 Hong Kong Telegram 4 May, 1904. Shanghai dispatch.\n\n15\n\nWei, 252.\n\n16 The China Mail, 24 September, 1918,\n\n17\n\nI am sorry that I have lost the date of this issue of the Hong Kong newspaper.\n\n10 His will was probated in Hong Kong in 1886.\n\n19 Left Sassoon and Company 21 January, 1891\n\n20\n\nMerchant. His will, witnessed by Hardoon, was probated in 1893.\n\n21 The obituary in the South China Morning Post. 8 August, 1979, identified Mrs Ezra as Mozelle Robinson Ezra of Shanghai. Edward Ezra and Mozelle Sopher were married in 1907\n\n22 People's Daily (Beijing), 15 October, 1991, 2.\n\n21\n\nChinese sources insist that he worked as a door keeper. At least he had control over accessibility to the boss\n\n24\n\nComplaints included members riding to services on the Sabbath and High Holy Days rather than travelling on foot", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213370, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "177\n\nscheme a success. The hospital and the tomb established in 1878 are still in existence to this day, and a memorial tablet for the deed was mounted on the front wall of a shop near the hospital. It is still in existence, too.\n\nNOTES\n\n \n 1\n Ch 2-7, A Brief Record of the Pacification of the Kwang-tung Rebels. A 1865 edition.\n \n \n 2\n Ibid. Ch 8.\n \n \n 3\n Ibid. Ch 9-10.\n \n \n 4\n Thick, Ch 1-12.\n \n \n 7\n Ch 72, Fung Kwan Gazetteer. 45, 46.\n \n\nBy that time, Lai Chun-hot was the commander of the 'Shung' Naval Battalion stationed in Chikrang. In the 5th Moon of the 2nd year of Tung Chi reign (1863), he found that his Battalion had only a few sloops but too many officers. Thus, he transferred his brother Lai Chun-pin back to Kwang-tung.\n\nDuring his time in Kowloon, he had dedicated a memorial board to the Hau Wang Temple in the Kowloon City in the 6th year of the Kuang Hsu reign (1880). The board is still hanging inside the temple today.\n\nAs per note 6.\n\nThe charitable hospital was called the Fong Bin Hospital.\n\nThe tomb was called Yee Chung Yuen, and was situated on the slope facing the sea at Tai Shek Flat, not far from the Tin Hau Temple of the region.\n\nTo my knowledge, Jar O on Lantau Island had one, formed by charitable subscription, and indeed, there was one at Lai Chi Kok, Sai Ying Pun and at Lai Ping Shan Street on Hong Kong Island. It was known as Kong Fuk Yee Charity Hall but in 1851, also formed by charitable subscription. It was taken over and extended as the Tung Wah Hospital in 1870, after which it became a hospital in the western style.\n\nDetail of the story of the scheme can be seen on the memorial tablet established in the 4th year of the Kuang Hsu reign (1878). It is still in existence.\n\nBecause of recent development on the island, the slope with the charitable tomb was levelled. The tomb has been moved to the cemetery which lies on the north of the island.\n\nThe shop, with the one next to it, were purchased with the charity fund at the time of the establishing of the Fong Bin Hospital. They were rented, and the money so got was used as the expenses of the hospital.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214151, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 9, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "Sheilah Hamilton - The District Watch Force ... 199\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nHong Kong (From the Notes of a Russian Traveller), translation of an article written by Iosif Antonovich Goshkevich in 1871.... 229\n\nHong Kong, translation from a book chapter written by Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov in 1853 237\n\n...... 247\n\nR.G. Horsnell - The Story of Stanley Fort 257\n\nR.G. Horsnell - The Story of Gun Club Hill Barracks ..... 265\n\nB.C. Fawcett - First World War Labour Corps Cemeteries in Flanders 281\n\nKeith Stevens - The American Soldier of Fortune Frederick Townsend Ward: Honoured and Revered by the Chinese with a Memorial Temple 285\n\nRonald Bishop Smith - Sir Ralph Moor and the 'Benin' Cannon of the British Museum and the Royal Armouries 293\n\nPhotographs from the Hong Kong 1906 Typhoon contributed by Victoria Brown 297\n\nDan Waters - Arnold Graham, 1905 - 1996. 305\n\nTranslated letter from the Bishop of the Philippines to the King of Spain dated 1584 contributed by Robin M. Bridge.............. 315\n\nGeoffrey W. Roper - The Drunken Dragon Dance and the Tam Kong (Tam Kung) Festival: Notes on the RAS HK Visit to Macau, May 1997 .. 323\n\nRobert Nield - Bits of Broken China: The RAS Visit to North-east China in Search of Colonial Remnants, 1999 329\n\nviii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214356, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "179\n\nwas the decapitation of a Fox Fairy, possibly the wicked King's concubine, Dan Ji. In legend the spirit of a fox inhabits the body of a beautiful young woman who then bewitches and captivates men. When killed such woman immediately revert to their fox body origins. In the exhibit the young woman is standing and as the sword descends her head rolls off and rolls about on the floor before immediately reverting to its original position on her body. The boys were only too delighted to press the button to cause the head to roll again and again. Another was the birth of the Third Prince out of his caul. In legend he is born an apparent monster but after a swift slash with a sword the caul opens and the child emerges. Once more the boys played this for us several times.\n\nThis was possibly not the most ideal way to be introduced to the Fengshen Yanyi. A year or so earlier my daughter and I heard of the small temple dedicated to Zhou Gong, located at the foot of Phoenix Mountain in a rural area north of Qi Shan in Shaanxi province. We drove there to find in the main hall of a memorial temple, which had just been renovated, an image of Jiang Ziya flanked by two mythological deities, Na Zha and Yang Jian [see Note 8]. The first of the two, is a seven year old youth who caused havoc in Heaven and, better known as the Third Prince. He is nowadays the primary guardian of temple altars in Taiwan where his image stands on the altar table before the main altar. His is a traditional story tracing the age-old conflict between generations, and conflict of power and responsibility. Yang Jian has certain magic powers, which he used during the conflict but is also regarded as a potent deity who protects against demonic attack. He is often referred to as Er Lang, and he and his small dog are to be seen in a number of temples and in many he is regarded as the patron deity of dogs. The murals across the whole of the main hall's side walls depict episodes from the Fengshen Yanyi complete with Jiang Ziya first mobilising the deities of heaven to help the Duke Fa, and finally, the scene of the Investiture itself on the Terrace of the Investiture.\n\n10\n\nA number of temples in the central-west of China used to contain large gilded 'mountains', carved structures representing a mountain with crags and caves on which were superimposed a number of carved wooden gilded images of Daoist deities. The vast majority of these were also characters from the Fengshen Yanyi.11", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214460, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 318, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "285\n\nTHE AMERICAN SOLDIER OF FORTUNE FREDERICK TOWNSEND WARD HONOURED AND REVERED BY THE CHINESE WITH A\n\nMEMORIAL TEMPLE\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nFrederick Townsend Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1831 and though he is said to have attended a private college in the United States, which included a military element in its curriculum, he failed to graduate. He left home and as a young ship's officer sailed on several trading voyages to China.\n\nIn his twenties, having sought excitement and a career as a free-booter during which time he claimed that he had fought in the Crimea with the French and in Central America where he met Garibaldi, he sailed yet as an officer on a US registered ship to China where, at the time, the Taiping rebellion, a major rebellion against the Ch'ing [Manchu] dynasty, was at its height and he finally sought employment ashore. Basically, he was a mercenary who saw his chance and took employment first sponsored by local Chinese officials and supported by a Chinese official in the defence of the Shanghai area from the rebels, then later by Ch'ing officials in his campaign against the same rebels, either for gain or excitement, possibly both.\n\nWard raised a force of some hundred Western mercenaries, on behalf of the Chinese in Shanghai, together with scores of Filipinos, as well as soldiers and sailors discharged or deserters from the Anglo-French expedition, for the protection of the city against what seemed like an impending attack by the Taiping Rebel forces. This proved a failure and a year or so later he raised a highly competent and disciplined force of Chinese soldiers officered by Westerners to fight the rebels. Ward became a Chinese citizen with an official rank. He claimed Chinese nationality when arrested by the captain of a British warship for violating neutrality but in the event was handed over to the Chinese because of his \"non-nationality.\"\n\nAt first the force of about a thousand was known as the Foreign-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214462, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 320, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "287\n\nWard was buried on his old drill-field near the Temple of Confucius just within the walls of the city of Sungkiang [Songjiang: pinyin], the prefectural capital of the area now dominated by Shanghai, and the city around which much of his military service with the Ever Victorious Army took place. Harry Franck2 visited the site in 1923 and wrote that “the Chinese built a temple of remembrance over his grave, similar to those built by Chinese for their famous men over the centuries, though unlike the majority with their gleaming yellow roof tiles his was a pathetic little gray-walled enclosure, covered with ordinary tiles, in an open space inside the West Gate, littered here and there with graves and unburied coffins. It was not imposing yet it was several times more so than the tomb the adventurer would probably have had in Massachusetts. Though the temple was but a single-room building, it had an altar with the spirit tablet of Ward, and all the other features of a Chinese temple, and now and again Chinese still come to burn incense and bow down before their hero of Taiping days. A conspicuous tablet in red and black tells those who know their Chinese that:\n\nAn illustrious man from beyond the seas, he came 6000 li to accomplish great deeds and acquire immortal fame by shedding his noble blood. Because of him Sungkiang will be a happy land for a thousand autumns”.\n\nFranck tells us that the temple was not badly kept, as things went in China. There were some trees and flowers in season, inside the compound, and the whole place has been recently repaired and repainted. Rice-straw and cabbages were drying on everything but the altar itself, and the woman caretaker had gone to market to \"buy things\" leaving her small son locked inside. The only foreign hint about the place was an unfinished stone recently set up by the \"Frederick Ward Post of the American Legion\" of Shanghai. He added that the most touching feature of the whole memorial was the mound of earth, like a common Chinese grave, behind the temple, but within the enclosure, under which Ward's big mastiff was buried. After his master's death, the story goes, the dog refused to take food and went wandering about looking for him until it died of starvation.\n\nSo, having seen an early photograph of the official temple,3 altar and tablet dedicated to Ward in Sungkiang some dozen or so years previously, I was determined to see for myself whether it still existed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214465, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 323, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "290\n\nforces, and while a great argument raged between two governments as to which had jurisdiction over him, he having once claimed Chinese citizenship in order to remain in Chinese service, Burgevine was opportunely drowned by the capsizing of what the Celestials called a ferry-boat\". Franck's inclusion of the word 'opportunely' is intriguing.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe French, fearing a British plot to expand their influence in China, established its own foreign-trained Chinese forces in treaty ports, with the best known, the Ever-Triumphant Army [Ch'ang-chieh Chün] founded by Prosper Giquel in 1862.\n\nFranck, Harry A.: Roving through Southern China: Appleton-Century Company, New York: 1923\n\nAlthough the Memorial Temple dedicated to Ward I was interested in was in Sungkiang, another similar Memorial Temple had also been built in his honour in Ningpo near where he died.\n\nCarr, Caleb: The Devil Soldier; The American Soldier of Fortune who became a God in China: Random House: New York: 1991", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215327, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 104, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "52\n\n1101. Though well known for his poetry, he was a celebrated scholar-statesman who has been deified by popular acclaim. However, though not recorded as such, it would be unlikely for him not to have been deified by posthumous imperial decree, an honour coming into vogue at that time.\n\nHe was born in Meixian in Sichuan province and died in Changzhou in Fujian shortly after being permitted to leave exile on Hainan island. His father was a distinguished scholar, and owing to his father's long absences from home, Su received most of his education from his mother. At the age of 21, he entered the state examinations and headed the list of competitors. He rose in public office and was prominent among the strenuous opponents of the political economist, Wang Anshi. His first fall from grace in 1079 was from ministerial office when he was downgraded to be Governor of Hangzhou Fu. In 1086, at the start of a new reign, he was restored to favour but again incurred imperial displeasure, this time being exiled, first to Huizhou in Guangdong and finally to the semi-barbarous island of Hainan in 1097 where he was appointed to the petty office of sub-prefect of Yaizhou. During his exile, having complained that Hainan was wild and its \"frontier\" people, settlers from the mainland, without culture, he took a genuine interest in their welfare as well as the welfare of the original non-Chinese inhabitants. He was permitted to return from banishment in ca. 1100 and died shortly after. He spent the four years of his exile in Hainan in Wenchang, in the north-east of the island, and was the first great name in Chinese history connected intimately with Hainan. His memorial temple in Haikou in Hainan island is now a museum. Within the grounds of the temple is the spring which he is said to have had dug during a severe drought.\n\nd] Zhu Chuping was a magistrate in Hainan who had preceded Su Shi in the post as magistrate by some twenty years.\n\n3: Major Hainanese Deities noted in all Hainanese communities\n\nThese are uniquely Hainanese Gods\n\n13\n\na] Images of the Marquis of Wenzhou, Wenzhou Houwang\n\nI have been seen only on altars in temples founded and run by ethnic Hainanese. According to devotees, he is uniquely worshipped", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215351, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 128, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "76\n\nwithin their memorial temples in Hainan. They may or may not be regarded as deities as details are not available, and may perhaps be simply ladies honoured for a specific reason.\n\nThe first is Huang Dao po [characters not available], who is said to have lived during the 14th century in Hainan and was proficient at cotton spinning. She travelled to central China where she taught the art of spinning to local women. There was [and may still be] a memorial temple to her in Qiongzhou in Hainan but once more, without any details.\n\nThe second is Taihua Furen\n\nA) who has only been noted\n\nonce. Her tablet has been seen on an altar in Hainan, and apart from it being the spirit of a human, who is again said to have lived during the 14th century, again nothing further is known.\n\nb] Liang Qinzhong, a Hainanese boy of seventeen, was struck and killed by lightning in a small kampong in Tanglin in Singapore in 1963. Shortly after it happened the ladies of the Hainanese community in the kampong in which Liang had lived attributed remarkable events to his spirit, and whenever they prayed before his tablet their wishes were fulfilled2. Quite quickly a cult developed and devotees came from all around. An attap hut shrine, dedicated to Shuiwei Shengniang, was altered to make way for a secondary altar on to which was placed the tablet dedicated to Liang Taiye, together with a portrait image of the youth. Above the image of Liang hung a sketch of him dressed in scholar's robes with a flash of lightning entering his breast. He was believed to have obtained power [ling] from the bolt, and continued to answer devotee's pleas to their satisfaction. One of the walls of the attap hut was hung with framed testimonials, many bearing a photograph of the person who had been helped by the deity. His festival was held annually on his birthday, the 12th of the seventh lunar month. This cult disappeared from Tanglin once the kampong had been demolished during the early seventies to make way for a new housing estate.\n\n8: Unidentified Images believed to be uniquely Hainanese\n\nThere have been a number of deities, noted either on lists of the gods within a temple or on the front face of their socle which remain unidentified. These include:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216318, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 77, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "26\n\nwhich is open to the public, the Mu Ta Yuan, so named for the Tao Ming Chan Si Mu Ta, a broken stone tomb pagoda dating from the year 1667 in the reign of Emperor Kang Xi which stands in the centre. The Mu Ta is a hexagonal stone pillar on a lotus flower with a round stone ball balanced on top decorated with dragon images wrapped around it. Two faint inscriptions can be seen on either side of the pillar. Lying on the ground beside the Mu Ta is a broken piece of an ancient inscribed tablet. This is one of the original four boundary stones of Longhua's predecessor Kongxiang Temple dating from the year 1262 in the late Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). Near the Mu Ta are three stone statues of a mythical animal, the Si Ge Lin Shou. These broken stone remains may be the oldest relics on the site, but their age, origin, and significance seem a mystery. In one corner of this courtyard is a corridor connecting with the Longhua Hotel next door. At the rear of the courtyard is the monk's Dining Hall (Zhai Tang), not to be confused with the separate Vegetarian Restaurant (Su Cai Guan) intended for public visitors located on the right side of the Da Xiong Bao Dian beneath the sign of the large wooden fish (pang) hanging from the rafters.\n\nTwo long barracks-like halls run along almost the full length of the western side of the temple compound and are divided up into many small Buddhist chapels. The major ones include the Arhat Hall (Luo Han Dian), and the Goddess of Mercy Hall (Guan Yin Dian). The Luo Han Dian is a new addition to the temple, added sometime during 2002. It features small golden statues of 500 arhats or Buddhist saints. This chapel has become quite popular with worshippers, but one woman who had just finished praying mistakenly told the author there were 800 arhats, testimony to the newness of this innovation. The Guanyin Dian is on the left side of the fourth courtyard and features an impressive golden statue of Guanyin, who is depicted as facing in all four directions, and has 1,000 arms. Many of her hundreds of hands hold objects of special significance.\n\nIn between the Luo Han Dian and Guanyin Dian is yet another hall, seemingly nameless, which although devoid of architectural splendor does have three splendid gilded Buddha statues. These three include Sakyamuni Buddha (Shi Jia Mou Ni Pusa) in the centre, Manjusri (Wen Shu) on your left, and Guanyin on your right. The interior walls of this hall are literally covered with memorial slips of paper and photographs meant to commemorate lost loved ones. It is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]