[ { "id": 205979, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "54 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nSt. Andrews 2, Aberdeen 2, Glasgow 1). Sir Joseph Kemp attended Cape University, South Africa and Edward Wynne-Jones the University of Wales. \n\nThese university-educated gentlemen represent a social stratum lying somewhere between Mathew Arnold's Barbarians and the Philistines. A large number of them had been educated in schools animated by the ideas and ideals of Arnold's father, Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby. \n\n28 Alexander Macdonald Thomson (1863-1924), Educated at Aberdeen University. Lecturer in Mathematics, Naini Tal College, India, 1884-5; Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Aberdeen, 1887; entered the Hong Kong Civil Service, and attached for one year to the Colonial Office, 1887; Treasurer 1898-1918. Retired in 1918. He is the only cadet who retired to live in the United States (San Mateo, California); most cadets, including the Scots, settled in the Home Counties on retirement. \n\n29 Norman Lockhart Smith (1887-1968) was the son of Hugh Crawford Smith, M.P., Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Lewis Audley Marsh Johnston (1865-1908) the son of William Johnston, M.P., Ballykilbeg, Ireland. \n\n30 Robert Huessler Yesterday's Rulers, Syracuse, New York, 1963, p. 98. \n\n31 In H. R. Wells and Lam Tong Chinese Documents and Petitions, Hong Kong, 1931, some examples are given in Chinese, with English translations. There are also some interesting specimens of petitions received by the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs from Chinese in Hong Kong. In the section on the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs in the General Orders of the Hong Kong Government, 1924, we read: \"Before taking action affecting bodies or classes of people, the Chinese Government is in the habit of issuing proclamations explaining the action to be taken and the reason for it and the Chinese in Hong Kong expect the same notice to be given. It is desirable that whenever the Head of a Department finds it necessary to take notice of any slackness in complying with the law, or to put a stop to gradual encroachments on the part of individuals, or to bring some new regulation into force, he should first consult the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and ask him to notify the people affected in the same way\". \n\n32 Margery Perham Lugard, vol. 2, London 1960, p. 302. \n\n33 Ibid., p. 367. \n\n34 Geoffrey Robley Sayer (1887-1962), Educated at Highgate School, London, and Queen's College, Oxford. Hong Kong Civil Service 1910; Director of Education 1934-6; retired 1938. \n\n35 Stephen Francis Balfour (1905-1945). Educated at King's College, Cambridge. Hong Kong Civil Service 1929; died in internment during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. \n\n36 Walter Schofield (1888-1968). Educated at the University of Liverpool. Hong Kong Civil Service 1911. First Police Magistrate 1934-1937; retired 1938. Schofield was noted for his work pre-war on the geology and archaeology of Hong Kong, in which fields he was a pioneer scholar. \n\n37 Roger Soame Jenyns (born 1904). Educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Hong Kong Civil Service 1926; resigned in 1931 to join the British Museum. He is a noted expert on the arts of the Far East and has written extensively in that field. \n\n38 Robert Andrew Dermod Forrest (born 1893). Educated at Aberdeen University. Hong Kong Civil Service 1919; Inspector of Vernacular Schools; Immigration Officer 1940. Lecturer in Tibeto-Burman Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206316, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "The District Watch Committee\n\n127\n\ncame from a few clearly defined areas in Kwangtung Province, because the great majority of the Chinese congregated in the urban areas spoke Cantonese4. Lennox Mills compares this situation in Hong Kong, which made government relatively easy, with pre-war Malaya. This homogeneity, he argues, ‘makes it possible to control them through the District Watch Committee. (On the other hand) the Chinese in Malaya are drawn from various provinces and are divided by provincial hostilities of long standing. The wealthy and educated Chinese in some districts come from a different province from the majority of coolies; and, in addition, the interests of the recent immigrants often differ from those of the Straits Chinese who are permanently settled in Malaya. A committee representing the Chinese of Malaya would necessarily reproduce the various schisms which divide them, and the members would in some cases have no influence over the coolies in their districts'4. In Hong Kong, however, the Chinese were not divided to any great extent by dialect or provincial hostilities, only by differences in wealth and status. The members of the District Watch Committee originated from a small number of hsien (counties) in the Canton delta, from districts and towns close to the Pearl River, the main channel of communication between Canton and Hong Kong before the completion of the Kowloon-Canton Railway in 1912. A high percentage of the committeemen were born in, or originated from, Tung Kwun (Tung-kuan hsien) and Heung Shan (Hsiang-shan hsien)42; and the merchants from these areas had their own district associations in Hong Kong.\n\nClearly, the members of the District Watch Committee had much in common: they spoke mostly the same dialect, they came from the same district or closely related districts in China and they were, if not merchants, then involved in some type of commercial pursuit—land speculation, owning and managing property, banking and insurance, finance, compradoring43. All in all, they formed a remarkably homogeneous group, united by many ties; and it would seem, rarely divided for long by political differences. Not surprisingly, some of them were inter-related through ties of blood and kinship44. There were few family dynasties in Hong Kong but a small number had children who served later on the Committee45. In the nature of things, members must have disagreed about some of the issues raised at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207056, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "The Manchu dynasty was at its strongest and most prosperous from the middle years of the K'ang Hsi reign on until late in the Ch'ien Lung period. This enabled the country to recover and consolidate after the disasters of the late Ming and the troubled period of transition to the Ch'ing; but it is necessary to remember that throughout these years Hsin-an remained a border region receiving new settlers. In the present New Territories this period saw many newcomers settle in old villages or found new ones. Besides the rehabilitation of old fields, there was apparently much new land to be opened for the taking. When the first ancestor of the So clan of So Uk, Kowloon, arrived in 1739 he called his new home Mau Tin Tsuen or Village of the Rough Grass Fields; and his descendants long used this name before 'So Uk' came into common usage.1 Life for all these persons was hard, and although the empire was in good hands, it seems likely that inhabitants of these coastal areas of the southeast were often subject to attack from marauders. The Ho family of San Tsuen, Pui O, Lantau say that a founding ancestor was killed by pirates; by calculation from the clan record,2 about the year 1710. This obliged villagers to site their settlements with care. In this period of resettlement and consolidation several of the Lantau villages, though getting a living from the sea, were by design located at some distance from it. It is only in more recent times, say the present elders, that they moved to lower sites nearer the shore.3\n\nFrom time to time, pirates became a particular menace, and it was not possible for the authorities to ignore their activities. A period of especial distress began for the people of Hsin-an, Tung-kuan and other coastal counties in the later years of the Ch'ien Lung reign. The genealogy of the Cheung clan of Pui O records:\n\nIn the 53rd and 54th year of Ch’ien Lung, a Tung Kuan man, Tam Ah-che became a sea robber. He robbed and killed, burned houses, in great measure, took away the men as slaves and women also. The local officials and soldiers would not dare to face these robbers.4\n\nThe Cheungs and other villagers later took steps in their own defence. The village council held a meeting and decided to turn\n\n1 Hayes, 1970, p. 158.\n\n2 Ho-shi Ts'u-pu; in manuscript.\n\n3 Removals on feng-shui grounds are excluded from this statement.\n\n4 Chang-shi Ts'u-pu; in manuscript.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209006, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "136\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n3\n\nMap of the East Coast of the Kwangtung Province, in the Ch'ing Cho Hoi Keung To Shuet 清初海疆圖說之粵東海圖說篇 The book was prepared in the Reign of Yung Cheng (1723-1735).\n\n* Chapter 43 and Chapter 255 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1864 edition 阮元廣東通志卷四十三及卷二百五十五\n\n5 Table 37 of Ch'ing Shi Ko\n\n* In the 12th year of the K'ang Hsi Reign (1673), Ng Shaam-kwai led an uprising against the Ch'ing Government. The uprising was suppressed in the 20th year of K'ang Hsi (1681). Some of his followers turned to piracy on the south coast of China.\n\n7 Chapter 255 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1864 edition\n\n* As recorded in the Map of the East Coast of the Kwangtung Province, in the Ch'ing Cho Hoi Keung To Shuet, within 16 coastal counties of the Kwangtung Province, a total of 41 forts, 312 cannon places and 618 guard-houses were erected when Yeung Lin was Viceroy of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Province. Of these, 4 forts, 32 cannon places, and 74 guard-houses were erected in the San On county.\n\n* He was appointed as Viceroy of Kwangtung Province in the 1st year of the Yung Cheng Reign (1723). The Province of Kwangsi was then under Kung Yuk-sun, as Governor.\n\n10 See my article The Fat Tong Mun Fort (or the Tung Lung Fort) in Volume 18 of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nDISTRIBUTION OF TEMPLES ON LANTAU ISLAND AS RECORDED IN 1979\n\nLantau Island lies to the west of the Island of Hong Kong. Before the Sung Dynasty, the people living there were mainly of the Yiu tribes. Then came the refugees of the Southern Sung. The population increased during the Ming Dynasty; and many of the temples on the island were first built at this time.\n\nDuring the first year of the K'ang Hsi reign of the Ch'ing Dynasty, the people living in the coastal areas had to move back to the interior, because of the policy called the \"Evacuation of the Coast\". Seven years later, in the eighth year of the K'ang Hsi reign, they were allowed to come back. However, like many houses, some of the temples decayed during their absence.\n\nFrom then on the population increased rapidly, with people flocking to the area. The local temples were rebuilt and repaired. The temples listed below are in existence in 1979. Though some", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210075, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "25\n\nA more carefully planned survey would make sure that all areas of Taiwan are included. In my survey, some are totally omitted, although I do have representatives from most administrative units throughout Taiwan (and 2 samples from Hong Kong).\n\nCities:\n\nTaipei: 19\n\nKeelung: \n\nTainan: 17\n\nKaohsiung: 23\n\nTaichung: 115+37 Yangmingshan:\n\nCounties: Taipei: 4\n\nYunlin: 6\n\nIlan: \n\nChiayi: 11\n\nTaoyuan: 9\n\nTainan: 4\n\nHsinchu: 16\n\nKaohsiung: \n\nMiaoli: 8\n\nPingtung: 5\n\nTaichung: 31\n\nTaitung: 5\n\nChanghua: \n\nNantou: 23\n\nHualien: 18\n\nPenghu: \n\nFinal Considerations\n\nThe practice of divination appears to be a universal phenomenon in the history of religion: universal both in time and in space. The modalities display an immense variety, and to come up with a complete list of types would require another essay. The Chinese temple oracles seem to belong to a category of numerological divination types in which the probability of certain results can be calculated according to mathematical laws. The other type of Chinese folk divination, using two \"moon blocks\", follows similar probability patterns, and is often used in combination with the temple oracles.21\n\nOne can wonder about the reasons why this type of divination remains so popular among Chinese temple goers. There may not be a simple answer to the question and it very likely touches on the borderline between conscious and unconscious motivation. Consultation of the oracles, moreover, is not dissimilar to gambling, with the important difference that the oracle consultant believes implicitly in the divine guidance and control of the oracle result. Although aware that probability patterns are involved, the ordinary believer is still convinced that the outcome of his consultation...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212016, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 431, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "406\n\nstated, namely that 'from the 1870s to the 1920s, the rural economy in Jiangsu and Guangdong, especially in areas that produced export crops, saw considerable prosperity' (p. 202) and that this prosperity must have translated into a higher standard of living for the majority of farmers and owner-cultivators, as well as tenants' (p. 202) until the early 1930s when the effects of the world depression came to be felt in China and 'created a situation in which both landlords and tenants felt that they had been unjustly treated', (p. 207). What this implies is again obvious. As Faure unreservedly states, ‘As it was, rural China was poor not because there was excessive trade, but because there was not enough of it', (p. 21). Indeed, Faure's central thesis is a familiar one among the 'optimists'. His work is original in the sense that it explores trade conditions in two provinces (Jiangsu and Guangdong) in a comprehensive manner, and presents new evidence through his documented case-study to strengthen the 'optimistic' viewpoint. It will certainly be welcomed by protagonists of the 'optimistic' school.\n\nBeing a polarized partner in the debate, it is not surprising to find that Faure adopts an uncompromising stance towards the 'pessimistic' argument which, according to him, rests basically on field studies in the 1920s and 1930s that are far from being unbiased records of observation and highly influenced by contemporary emotions', (p. 3). On the issue of documentation, Faure actually stands on the horns of a dilemma; for he has little choice but to rely on the same pool of available source materials which he is so sceptical about. That Faure can manage to build up his 'optimistic' case is partly due to the fact that historical data can be interpreted differently, based on the historian's own frame of mind. As a matter of fact, two historians using the same source may come up with vastly different conclusions, just as two contemporary observers of reality may have very different assessments of the same situation. Besides, the pool of data is enormous and diversified in content. China is too vast a country to provide for homogeneity in economic texture and behaviour. Conditions may vary not only between provinces but within a province, between two neighbouring counties and even within a single county. There thus exists a vast and sometimes conflicting body of qualitative and quantitative information on various aspects of rural China which, when selected with a fixed purpose in mind, can add weight to either the 'optimistic' or 'pessimistic' viewpoint. This controversy, when examined from a methodological perspective, does indeed shed light on the nature of historical debate in general. It is rooted in the historian's selection and interpretation of historical facts. As the eminent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213794, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 146, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "117\n\nfrom singing Mountain Songs, at least within the vicinity of the village. I lived in the village for about 10 years before 1974. A neighbour in the village in her 30s in the 1960s did sing them for fun at home from a book compiled by a modern author and brought from a bookstore. According to an older woman in the same village, born around 1910, those songs were exchanged mainly among female villagers while working outside the village. They did not sing them within the village, because otherwise a village leader would scold them. My recent interviews in the village show that this leader is a member of the lineage segment that produced some degree holders not so many generations before, and his other contribution to the lineage was the compilation of a genealogy that incorporates information from genealogies from other counties that trace to the same ancestors. Unfortunately, unlike ordination names which are recorded in genealogies, spirit tablets, and grave stone inscriptions, Mountain Songs do not leave much dateable information, and it is improbable that much evidence can be found bearing on the status of Mountain Songs among the Hakka before the 17th Century.\n\n1\n\n1\n\nE\n\nNOTES\n\nOne may speculate that such widespread ordination may be related to their claim of exemption from corvee levy. But for ordinations to be used to back a claim for such exemption, they probably have to be either Daoist or Buddhist, and I do not think the ordination names of the Yau or of the Hakka could be accepted as Daoist by the imperial Chinese governments.\n\nLuo Xianglin, Kejia Yanjiu Daolun, vol. 1, Hong Kong: Zhongguo Xueshe, 1965.\n\nFor example, the first ancestor of the House of Kam Tin and nearby villages of the New Territories to come to the region is a Hon Wu Lang. The ancestor of the Pengs of Fanling, N.T., who came with his father to the region is a Peng Fa Guang. Both names match the style of ordination names found among the Hakka, and some of their descendants' villages are the only ones in the N.T. which hold the rite of Hongtou, which relates closely to the Hakka sang tradition. See David Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986, for the two lineages and the rite of Hongtou, and a Chicken Song ritual.\n\nAlthough some examples of the non-numeric character could be interpreted as forming a numeric expression with the character that followed, e.g., \"nian\" could mean twenty, they were probably not intended as such. As I shall elaborate later, some of those characters seen thus used in the Hakka genealogies are also found among the She minorities of Fujian to indicate generation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216165, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 464, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "398\n\nbeen a famous well in front of the temple, with a reputation for aiding fertility, its water being reputed to guarantee the birth of sons. It was still there, and the soldiers reported that by the 1970s, if not before, many people were again coming to the temple by the bus load from neighbouring counties in the third lunar month. Though the temple had been destroyed and the images of its deities removed, country folk were still believers and they particularly liked to take water back to their homes. During our visit, the soldiers fetched two buckets of water from the well for us to drink. It was very clean and sweet, though the well is neither large nor deep.\n\nFinally, and to remind, a more general but detailed overview of the culture of late imperial times, is provided in Richard J. Smith's excellent China's Cultural Heritage: The Qing Dynasty 1644-1912, 2nd revised edition (Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1990).\n\nPOSTSCRIPT\n\nMy old friend Mr. Wan On of Pui O, South Lantau, has reminded me of the close analogy between the treatment of present day SARS and of the infectious diseases causing deaths in local village communities of old, which often struck during the late winter and early Spring. The isolation and quarantining of infected persons and their contacts was, in the latter case, extended to whole villages. No one was allowed to come in, and no one was allowed out, usually for around two to three weeks. In addition, a protective ritual (a ta chiu/dajiao) was performed by a Daoist priest, and vegetarian food and sexual abstinence were prescribed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]