[ { "id": 205610, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n147\n\nIt is in connexion with worship of “Mother” that the lay-out of the shrine rooms in vegetarian halls of the sect is important. Mother must be placed higher than any other deity and should occupy a room to herself (or occasionally shared with Kuan-yin with whom, as we have said, she is sometimes identified). This means that halls of the sect should whenever possible be built on two storeys, with \"Mother's\" room on the upper storey. This was so in the case of all the halls visited. Usually, one of the popular triads is housed in the main downstairs shrine-room (occasionally one finds an image downstairs of the many-armed Chun-t'i: “Goddess of Dawn\" supposedly of Buddhist origin, but she was not present in the halls visited).\n\nUpstairs besides the room dedicated to “Mother\" there is often a shrine also for the soul-tablets of past members.\n\nMembers of the Society were fortunately permitted to visit all shrine rooms (some halls do not permit outsiders to enter the \"Mother\" room).\n\nRelations between the Halls and the Ngau Chi Wan Village\n\nThere is a certain amount of inter-action between the halls at Ngau Chi Wan and the village of this name which, though on the fringe of urban Kowloon and augmented by neighbouring squatter huts and factions, is still largely inhabited by the descendants of founding Hakka families who came to this spot in the mid-eighteenth century and after. The annual festival of the god of the main village temple (said to be a Ch'iu Ch'au deity whose image was brought up from the sea off Ngau Chi Wan by village fishermen a long time ago) occurs on the 25th of the 2nd lunar month. At this time the inmates of the halls visit the opera performance that is held in a matshed on open ground in front of the KAM HA CHING SHE and worship at the portable shrine that is brought on these occasions from the temple half a mile away. Our visit took place just before this festival and already the bamboo structure on which the matshed for the opera was to be built, was being erected. A large temporary cooking stove had also been constructed for the occasion for serving vegetarian food (which Marjorie Topley gathered in conversation with some of the inmates was contracted for by the village temple association from the vegetarian halls).\n\nAgain, at the Festival of Hungry Ghosts on the 7th of the 7th moon, it is “traditional” practice for about 100 students from the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206809, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "80\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nChing p'eng \"cleaning the matshed\" has to take place before the performance. The puppeteers take a live cock and make an incision in his throat and then carry him over the stage, dropping his blood into every corner, over the backstage and even over the musical instruments. This is done in order to protect themselves against the evil spirits or hungry ghosts, which performing puppets attract. That human actors perform at the Hungry Ghosts Festival is a development of the past 20 years for Ch'aochowese. Originally only puppets were used. The human likeness of the moving puppet fools the ghost, who takes possession of the puppet. Thus humans are protected from their assault and the whole area gets cleared of their evil influence. Puppet-shows are mainly performed as an exorcising ceremony and it therefore does not matter whether there is a public to watch the performance or not.\n\nThe actual performance starts mostly with the 'Birthday of the Eight Immortals', which is a series of good wishes. This introductory piece starts with the Peach Banquet, implying the wish for longevity. The next part is called 'To bestow Rank and Riches'; then comes the fairy who sends sons. The next short play is a ceremony to \"cleanse the matshed\" and the last is called \"the banquet at the capital\", which is to congratulate the troupe for its performance. The main play starts after this introduction.\n\nThe repertory of the two Hong Kong Ch'aochow puppet-groups comprises the following operas, which are part of the Ch'aochow Opera tradition:\n\nHu-li Luan Chou Wang 狐狸亂周王\n\nTuan-Chiao Hui\n\nLi Te-wu 李德武\n\nKuan Wang Miao 闊王廟\n\nYang Tsung-pao\n\nI Chih Mei 一枝梅\n\nThe script/stories of these operas are spoken and sung by the puppeteers. If the opera is a wen-chü or literary play, the text which is in rhymes is fixed and a script is used; but when a wu-chü or military play is performed the puppeteers use their own imagination to enrich the familiar plot.\n\nOne further point should be mentioned. Shadow-puppet theatre was very early a most important part of entertainment and when finally drama became organised, the public eye was so trained on the shadow-puppet movements that they were taken over into the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207667, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "40\n\nDOUGLAS W. SPARKS\n\nAnother example was an attempt, again several years ago, initially promoted by several very prominent Teochiu elites, to use some of the money donated for the three-day Hungry Ghost Festival for charitable purposes. Total expenditures on each of these 58 festivals range from HK$150,000 to more than HK$200,000. The minimum total annual expenditure is at least HK$9,000,000. The attempt was unsuccessful in that the organizers were unable to convince local-level leaders to set aside part of the collected funds for a general fund for certain charitable purposes.\n\nThere is considerable diversity among Teochiu leaders in attitudes toward this particular festival which, as a three-day public ritual, is largely performed by Teochiu (though many non-Teochiu families also make individual offerings to the hungry ghosts on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month). Some leaders regard the festival as a “superstitious” waste of money, and this attitude was one of the motivations behind the attempt to siphon donated funds into charitable purposes. This example illustrates the lack of agreement among Teochiu organizations and leaders at different levels concerning attitudes toward religious beliefs and ritual in general and this important Teochiu festival in particular. It is important in that it is the ritual focus of a number of locally organized informal groups and is considered by many Teochiu and non-Teochiu as the cultural symbol par excellence of Teochiu ethnic viability. Although it is possible to argue that this huge expenditure is a waste of money and effort, it is my belief that local-level leaders would not be able to generate sufficient enthusiasm for the donation of money and physical labor for purposes other than those which non-elite would choose to participate in. The festival organizations are largely autonomous and locally organized informal groups which would not exert such effort for goals originating at higher levels within the Teochiu community.\n\nIf Teochiu organizations are not tightly inter-linked by formal mechanisms, they are of course interconnected by personal networks. These are the threads tying together the Teochiu community and literally run up and down socio-economic levels and have contact points with the formal organizations. Ego-centric networks also cross-cut ethnic boundaries, a reflection of numerous friendship, commercial, and political ties across ethnic categories. There is of course considerable variation in the extent to which ego-centric networks include non-Teochiu linkages.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208361, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n69\n\nIn an earlier work I have pointed to the similarity between these small boats and the spring practices on the graves; I suggested there that the small boats which carried wine and food were a kind of sacrificial altars intended for the benefit of the dead ancestors.\n\nThe insights we can get from such comparisons do not provide us with any real clues to the sign constellation of paper money suspended in branches. There are, however, some other notes of interest in this connection. If we turn to paper money49 there were two other main calendar events which called for their use. One was the lunar New Year when, according to records from many places,50 paper money was suspended above doors and burnt. This seems to have been part of the New Year offerings to the ancestors. The other event when paper money was used and burnt was on the Zhongyuan, or the 14th and 15th days of the seventh moon. This is mainly a Buddhist ceremonial occasion, in the literature often referred to as the 'Feast of the Hungry Ghosts' or 'All Souls Day', when offerings are made to the tortured souls in Hell, who escape their sufferings on one or a few nights to visit the earthly regions. An important feature of this ritual to be observed here is that the offerings of paper money are, on this occasion, directed in a general way to roaming souls, and not to particular graves. Practices concerned with Zhongyuan are on record from several places in the Dongting region.\n\nWhat ancestors are of concern in the spring grave worship? Says Maurice Freedman:\n\nThe ancestors as they are represented in their bones are not the ancestors worshipped in their tablets. Each dead forebear appears in two separate guises. Bones and tablets form opposite and complementary parts of the cult of the ancestors. The ancestors as bones are yin: they are of the Earth, passive and retiring. The ancestors in their tablets are yang: they have affinities with Heaven and are active and outgoing,52\n\nThe cult of the ancestors in their bone guise is focussed on the graves both with regard to calendar events and to geomantic considerations. Paper money was offered to the yin ancestors as well as to the yang ancestors. Furthermore 'mock money' was of important use on the Buddhist festival of Zhongyuan which, as we have just seen, was concerned with the spirits in the Buddhist", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208736, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "166\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\ncannot be touched by its defilements. The gods of the folk religion are seen as more human in this (and other) respects. They need worship and offerings for their continued existence. They are susceptible to dangers and impurities. This shows that these concepts have been created by the common people in a simple fashion. Neither the higher deities of Taoism nor the Buddhist Holy Ones share this vulnerability. Unless, perhaps, even here there is a wrong interpretation by the author. Is it correct to say that the gods can be polluted? I have some doubts. If gods are really efficacious, they do not have to fear human pollution, or pollution by evil spirits. I believe that gods are kept away from the presence of evil spirits as a sign of honour; it would be an insult to their sacredness (just as the common people are not brought into the presence of emperors). Wherever there is a special need of bringing the two together, as in cases of exorcism, the gods are called down to chase the evil spirits away. Why is that not polluting as well? In such cases, the element of irreverence is absent (as when criminals are brought into the presence of high mandarins for judgment and sentencing).\n\nThe same sense of respect for the hierarchical status is present in the chronomantic ordering of sacrifices. The higher the status of the gods, the earlier in the day they are served (p. 154).\n\nOn pp. 168-169, several confusions occur: Taoist priests are said to perform in Buddhist temples, while Buddhist monks are invited to Taoist temples. The examples cited do not warrant this, for the so-called Buddhist temple is not really a Buddhist temple, while the Matsu temples cited are not Taoist either. The author conveniently follows the official appellation from the gazetteers, which he has criticized in a previous chapter.\n\nOn p. 174, there is another example of 'sublime distortion'. The author tries to explain the folk saying that \"Taoists do not offer the service for feeding the hungry ghosts, and Buddhist monks do not offer the li-tou service\", already quoted on p. 165. Factual observations contradict the saying. The author's explanation is that “individual ancestral services such as chin-chu and chin-t'a are only offered... in \"Buddhist\" bone temples, and by Buddhist priests (p. 174), whereas the community temples do not allow this to take place: the god's purity must be safeguarded. First, the statement is incorrect as far as chin-chu services are concerned; these normally", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208740, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "170\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nto the hungry gods\" (p. 235). This statement is contradicted by the custom of ending great festivals with a huge banquet offered to the ghosts: at the end of a chiao festival there always is this p’u-tu ritual. I have seen it performed as well at the conclusion of a temple consecration, of an installation of new deity statues, etc. I feel that the author over-states his case in order to strengthen his thesis.\n\nIn Chapter VI: \"The Genesis of Gods” (pp. 238-269), the author formulates a new theory of how the gods, or cult-symbols, are created by the community. Since the gods, per definition, are symbols of community cohesion, they must appeal to the community as a whole. Ancestors are naturally excluded as candidates, and so the author decides that \"gods evolved from hungry ghosts\" (p. 239). Such a theory comes as a shock: it goes against the grain of most religious traditions, in which candidates for sainthood and deification are chosen from among the highest models of virtue, reflecting ideals of human perfection to be imitated by all men. Here, however, gods are born on the \"garbage piles” of society; they are among the outcasts who have no known family, no known descendants. That this theory is at first alarming does not necessarily undermine its validity. However, before it can be accepted, we must carefully scrutinize it.\n\nFirst of all, it is clear that the author only talks about the deities of the community religion. A great number of \"supernatural” beings are therefore not included: for example: the higher gods of Taoism, the Buddhist Holy Ones; their genesis is quite different. Also excluded are the gods of the \"state religion\" of ancient times, still worshipped nowadays: Heaven, Earth, the nature gods like the spirits of thunder, of rain, of mountains and rivers, etc. These are rather personifications of natural phenomena. The author also excludes the Taoist immortals, although in legend and literature they are often close to the people. It seems therefore that only one group remains to develop into cult symbols, the hungry ghosts. The fact of their evil origins is later on camouflaged.\n\nA priori I do not see any serious reason to reject this theory even if it appears to be shocking. However, I want to see solid arguments brought forward. And I find that the author does not provide them, except for one case (see later). When the author takes up the Matsu cult as an example he undermines his own thesis when he says that it is possible that her cult \"began as the cult...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208741, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 198, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n171\n\nto a ghost, perhaps to bones or a corpse\" (p. 251). Soon afterwards he makes this ghostly origin a positive fact, although the emphasis is slightly shifted. Matsu (and Ch'ing-shui tsu-shih as well) were originally \"spirits without descendants” (p. 252). There is one weakness in the author's reasoning: do gods arise from \"lonely ghosts\", also called “hungry ghosts\" or \"orphan spirits”, or do they arise from Kui (\"ghosts\")? No clarification is ever given to the terms, although I find them crucial in this context. Evil spirits were believed in by the Chinese people from ancient times, but with the advent of Buddhism they were identified with the pretas, which means \"hungry ghosts\" in the context of popular Hinduism and Buddhism. An important distinction should be made, however, between the anonymous mass of hungry spirits, and the ghosts of individuals. It appears that all the gods arising from ghost-state to divinity have been individually known during their lifetime and after their death. Some of them died without offspring, but is that the determining factor here? The author says yes; but I am not convinced. The author sees here a likeness with the Buddhas (bodhisattvas as well?) and the immortals of Taoism; but again, they did not reach the high state of perfection because they broke off the family ties; but, having left their families, they had a better opportunity to reach that state. The same principle applies to the examples given by the author to prove his thesis: they were not worshipped by the community just because they had no family ties; but because they were extraordinary persons possessing a special power that elevated them above the ordinary man. Not being married and leaving no descendants is just one aspect of their higher status. In other words, they were admired by the people — perhaps also feared (sharing the ambiguity of the sacred: fascinans et tremendum) and after their death a cult started to emerge.\n\nThis is only one process of cult formation. I accept the possibility that some gods arose to divine status as the author claims, but this to me is rather exceptional. In any case, he owes us better proof than what he provides here. It is my claim that most of the major gods, if not all, worshipped in the area under scrutiny, rose to eminence as a variety of hero-worship. Some of them had families of their own but this fact may have been forgotten or considered unimportant. I cannot accept the author's a priori statement that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208743, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n173\n\nties. Fear may well be a motivating force to build small shrines for abandoned bones, but except for one case of a major cult arising out of it (Anle po, pp. 254-256) the author has not substantiated his thesis. I feel that ghost-worship is only a minor and exceptional case of deity-formation.\n\nFinally, Chapter VII: “Structure and Function of Community Cults\" (pp. 270-291), treats some of the sociological aspects of the community cults: especially leadership. But first the author discusses the primary functions of the cult, which he formulates as follows:\n\n\"First to rid the community of evil and to assure the well being of the community members; second to act as an instrument of social control so as to unite the worshippers of various different families, and to elicit from them a certain conformity of behavior.\" (p. 270).\n\nI wonder whether the author should not have reversed the order; instead of emphasizing the negative functions, the more positive ones are more significant:\n\nFirst, the community cult is a symbol and an effective expression of group cohesion. Social control and conformity are rather secondary effects. Primarily the cult is an organism for group celebration — secondly, the cult is a means to protect the community: by obtaining divine favours from the various community gods and by exorcising all kinds of evils of 'supernatural' origin.\n\nAmong those evils, the ‘hungry ghosts' (rather the 'lonely' ghosts) are one group, but they are not the \"main evil\" confronting the community (p. 271). Among the greatest misfortunes used to be and still are fire hazards and water catastrophes (like typhoons, storms, floods): these are caused by fire and water spirits, and are often exorcised in the early days of a chiao festival.\n\nOn p. 272 ff., Baity speaks about the spatial aspects of the community cult. It is regrettable that he did not discuss this matter right at the start, since this is one of the essential aspects of the community cult. The main temple of an area, housing the protective deity of the community, is called a tsung miao by the author (p. 272). This is at least ambiguous: a tsung miao is rather the mother temple of a cult which has spread to other areas developing a number of split-temples or fen-miao.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208744, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "174\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\n44\n\nAnother incorrectness is found on p. 273:\n\n... at the level of the town, the cult of the local people and the cult of the Confucian officialdom merged imperceptibly into one and the same figure that of the City God.\" This is a quite questionable statement: in many towns the City God temple is not the main deity of the community at all: Matsu is an example, Kuan-yin another one. I admit that officialdom made great efforts to positively control the community cults and promoted the City God temples, but I'd rather like to see examples of townships where his cult has become the main focus of worship. Moreover, City Gods do not seem to have arisen from so-called \"hungry ghosts\" but are rather deified men of great merit. The genesis of these gods does not fit in with the author's theory of deity formation.\n\nIn the latter part of Chapter 7, the author discusses cult leadership. There are several forms or patterns (i) the rotating pattern: all the heads of households in turn become \"stove-master\". (I'd prefer to call him 'incense-master', since in the Chinese term lu-chu the word lu means 'stove' in some contexts, but here it means incensor or incense container); (ii) election by divination (casting the divining blocks), usually for a limited term; (iii) appointment of a committee and chairman and often of a temple manager. Here the author is not clear as to how the appointments are made. If committees appoint chairmen and managers, by whom are the committees appointed? Very often larger temples elect wealthy local businessmen or politicians to their committee, and even in smaller temples local leaders often serve on the temple committee. Wealthy and influential personalities are hoped to guarantee the good luck of a temple in more than one way.\n\nIt is now time to recapitulate the main themes of the whole book: to point out its merits and its shortcomings. First of all, the book starts off with some kind of ambiguity concerning what the author's real objective is. On p. 1 he announces his intention as \"to develop a new analytical model to account for certain features of belief and behavior in Taiwanese temple cults, and to provide a classificatory framework for temple types in urban Taiwan\"; in particular he wishes to examine certain aspects of \"community religion\". What those \"certain aspects\" entail is not clear, but an indication is given when author says that his \"major goal is to classify temples”, (p. 4). On the other hand, he also seems to aim at revealing \"the systematic nature of the folk beliefs\" (p. 4), which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209881, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "118\n\nsuccessful leadership was assessed by the smooth handling of the arrangements for celebrating the birthdays of the principal gods of the two local temples, Hung Shing and Kuan Yin, and the important festival of Hungry Ghosts in the seventh lunar month. Each Fong took its turn to be responsible for managing and financing the arrangements made on these ritual occasions, and by local custom, the leaders were not permitted to canvas funds outside their own Fong. It was this restriction which led to the amalgamation of the three old Fong organizations about 1930. The Fong serving the San On group had declined in numbers, and when it came to its turn, could no longer support the burden of financing the festival arrangements to the satisfaction of the community. The amalgamation was hardly a major innovation, in that the whole community, and the leaders of all three Fongs, had always combined together whenever it became necessary to repair the local temples. The hearing of 1893, referred to above, makes this clear. The Hung Shing temple had been given a major reconstruction in 1888. On that occasion the three Fongs appointed between 10-20 managers from among their leaders to share the work of collecting subscriptions and arranging for the building work to be done.\n\nThe record of the 1893 hearing shows that, in ordinary years, there were usually three members of the temple committee, called chik sze. (4) One of the current chik sze of 1893 described his duties. 'Our duties are to attend to the theatricals in the course of the year and to look after the interior fittings of the temple'. The evidence contains a passing reference to 'the three guilds'. Other facts stated in the record and discussed with old residents (born respectively in 1887, 1891 and 1897; and interviewed in 1966) shows that the three Fongs were meant. The implication is either that each Fong supplied one manager to the body of three who looked after the physical maintenance of the temple; or that as with the celebration of major festivals each Fong took it in turn to manage the temple for one year. I believe that the former was the case.\n\nI turn now to the leadership of the Fongs. Unfortunately the record of the hearing in the temple dispute does not help to explain how the leaders in each Fong came to be elected to their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209885, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "122\n\noutbreak of bubonic plague in 1894.22 The reason given by old members for establishing a Fuk Tak Kung(4) is that in his lifetime the god was a noted Chinese medical practitioner, and therefore well suited to become the guardian god of a crowded city district. The shrine may, however, be even older than this. The district was already well established by the 1850s,28 and probably had guardian shrines from the outset.\n\nThe god looked after a specific area of the city. The old 'chops' and wood-block charms that survive from pre-war days carry the name Sai Ying Pun in the title. The boundaries, as given by the leaders active in the mid 1960s, some of whom had been associated with the committee from their earliest years through their fathers and grandfathers' service as managers, centred on the shrine's location at Sheung Fung Lane. However, it is said that, in pre-war years, among the many persons who came regularly to worship at the shrine on the god's birthday on the 18th day of the first lunar month, were people from outside the boundaries and even from Kowloon, so great was the reputation of the shrine. Many of the outside worshippers came in groups known as pao wui.(4)25 It was stressed, too, that this shrine had no connection with the Tai Ping Shan Fuk Tak Kung described below, for that earth god shrine lay in, and the god looked after, a completely separate locality.\n\nThe shrine was tended by a keeper appointed by the managers. When my informants were young, the keeper was an old woman who lived on the premises and died there about 1930, aged over 80. There is a splendid photograph of her still kept in the shrine.\n\nThe body of managers comprises a minimum of 34 persons each year, but has often been around the 40-50 mark. Its duties are solely to do with arranging for chanting by nam mo lo(1) (Taoist priests) at the god's birthday in the first moon and at the Yue Lan or Hungry Ghosts festival in the seventh moon. At the god's birthday, but not at Yue Lan, the religious rituals have always been accompanied by a puppet show (never opera) for the traditional three days and four nights.20 The managers also have the responsibility of arranging for the procession of the god through the district under his protection", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210281, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 252, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "231\n\nDuring the whole festival period, the main temple was the most neglected area, whilst the Ming-che area was always crowded with worshippers. Free vegetarian food was offered by the committee in the Association Hall for the whole period. The Association Hall and a room of the office of the Temple were used as temporary kitchens for preparing food and offerings.\n\nWorshippers seldom went to the main temple except for presenting incense sticks. Even though the Tao-ch'ang area was more spacious and was air-conditioned, worshippers seldom stayed long in the Tao-ch'ang area except on the last night, for the \"Great Offering\" ceremony. Worshippers seldom visited the Association Hall either except when they were giving donations or having their daily meals. The Ming-che area was the only place which was always crowded. There were people chatting, exchanging greetings, admiring and criticising every Ming-che (paper-made houses), folding paper-money and playing musical instruments and singing.\n\n5\n\nThe Tao-ch'ang area was seen as the most dangerous and frightening place for the worshippers because it was believed to be full of the hungry ghosts who came for the offerings. The Association Hall and the kitchens belonged to the hosts, the Hokkienese. Worshippers went first to the Tao-ch'ang area to offer foods to the spirits, and then to the Association Hall to accept meals from the hosts. In general, worshippers felt attracted to the Ming-che area because, while it was the area of their ancestors, yet the ancestors there were not frightening. The Ming-che area gave the worshippers the opportunity to be at the same time closer to their ancestors, and to build up relationships with other Chinese who lived far away. Non-Hokkienese worshippers seemed to avoid the Association Hall because of ethnic differences, and this brought them even closer to the Ming-che area. During the whole event, only 'Ancestor Worship' was emphasised by the worshippers.\n\nII. The Festival\n\nAccording to the figure-maker (Tze-shi) Mr. Lin Yau Chie (73 years old, Hokkienese), the preparation for each year's 'Yue Lan' starts from the end of the previous event. In other", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210282, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 253, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "232\n\nCHOI CHI CHEUNG\n\nwords, he starts to accept orders for making Ming-che\" from the middle of the 7th moon. However, not until the beginning of the year is any actual work done. The Association first elects a committee for the 'Yue Lan' festival during the feast for the Lantern Festival (15th of the 1st moon), and several donation-books (Yuan Bu*) are sent out to different places in Japan to collect donations from the Chinese. At about the same time (2nd of the 2nd moon), Mr. Lin starts to make figures, Ming-ches, Chos (paper-made houses for the gods and ancestors), gold and silver paper-made hills, direction flags, and other paraphernalia. Major figures are completed a month before the festival starts. Then, a priest is invited to open the eyes (Kai Kuan H or Kai Yen MIR) of the paper-made figures, and the statues of the Kwan-ti temple and the Tao-ch'ang. On the same day, a ‘Raising the Lantern of Heaven' (Chie T'ien Dan) ritual is done to invite all the spirits to the festival. The committee will then start to send invitation letters to the Chinese in Japan.\n\nThe festival lasted 4 nights and 5 days from Aug. 31 to Sept. 4 (from 13th to 17th of the 7th moon), 1982.” According to a public notice, the rituals included: (i) a daily morning and a daily night ritual, (ii) praying for the reincarnation of the dead in the morning and afternoon, (iii) reporting to Heaven in the afternoon, (iv) offering to the hungry ghosts at night, and, (v) a lantern floating ceremony in the afternoon of Sept. 2.10 Table 1 shows, however, that the scheduled time-table was not strictly followed. For example, on the last morning of the festival, three rituals were performed to thank the gods of the Temple, to thank Heaven, and to offer to the ghosts which were supposed to be late or handicapped, instead of the previously advertised \"praying for reincarnation”.\n\nFrom my observation, it appeared that no one attended the 'Morning Lessons' (Morning ritual and prayer for reincarnation), and, except for the rituals for reporting to Heaven, the lantern floating ceremony and the last ‘Great Offering', there was less than ten persons who attended from start to finish. Besides the rituals for reporting to the Heaven, the three rituals held on the last day and the lantern floating ceremony, all other rituals took place at the 'Tao Ch'ang' area.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210285, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 256, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "20\n\n235\n\nhand-gestures implying that he was going to replace the ghosts who were suffering in Hell.\" After that, he threw six Man Taus as if he was offering millions of bread to the hungry ghosts who had been released from Hell. All three representative worshippers of the committee, each holding a small incense stick, attended each night offering ritual. During the last ‘Offering', the Tao Ch'ang area was crowded with worshippers who were mainly family members and relatives of the 'Newly Dead'. Everyone attending the last ‘Offering' held a small incense stick. According to the informants, the ‘Last Offering', different from the other offerings, was especially for the ancestors of the worshippers.\" After the ritual, all the paper-made figures, Chos, and Ming-ches were burnt with paper-made gold and silver hills, bundles of paper money, and fire crackers. As each Ming-che was burning, the family members and the relatives of the 'Newly Dead' bowed down to send it off. For most of the worshippers, the festival had now ended, and only the committee members attended the rituals held on the last morning.\n\nOn the last day, there was a ritual to (i) thank the temple god, Kwan-ti, (ii) thank Heaven, and (iii) give offerings to those handicapped ghosts who were supposed to have come late. For the first time in the whole festival, meat was presented at this ritual.” The festival ended with the priests' departure after the rituals. The Association held a feast in the afternoon of the last day to celebrate the successful completion of the festival.\n\nIII. Composition of the Participants\n\nFour categories of the participants should be specially mentioned. They are: (a) the priests, (b) the common worshippers, (c) the families of the \"Newly Dead,” and (d) the committee members and workers.\n\nA team of nine priests, including eight monks and one nun, were employed from the Huang Po (## Obakku in Japanese) Buddhist sect from the Wan Fu temple (万 Manfukuji in Japanese) in Uji (宇治), Kyoto.23 Although (as at least two informants told me) in the past the priests in this temple were mainly Chinese, they are now all Japanese. They used to have\n\n4:2", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210293, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "243\n\nThe content of the invitation card is: \"The overseas Chinese in Japan will hold a 3-days-4-nights Pu Tu, for the sake of establishing luck by offering and helping all the imprisoned spirits of the water and the earth. The meeting will take place at the Kwan T'i Temple in Kobe city. Please come to the \"Tan\" (altar) to present incense sticks during the 14th, 15th, and 16th of the 7th moon. (1st, 2nd and 3rd of September 1982).” The card was red in colour.\n\n9\n\nThe 13th day and the 17th day of the 7th moon were not mentioned in the invitation card.\n\n10 The Lantern Floating ritual in Japanese is \"To Ro Nagashi', which means to float lanterns(s) (to the sea). During the Japanese Obon, lanterns are sent off on the last day of the festival. Through this, the ghosts and the ancestors are all sent back. During the Kobe festival, the ritual, according to the committee members, was to send off the \"wandering ghosts or those who are not worshipped by anyone (= Mu Zhi Kuai)\". However it seems confusing because after the floating ritual, they continued to give offering to the hungry ghosts as well as to the ancestors for two more nights, and the tablets of the wandering spirits were still inside the Tao Ch'ang. A similar ritual practised in Hong Kong during the Chiao festival is called 'Fong Shui Dang' (t, sending off the water lanterns), which is parallel with the 'Fong Luk Dang\" (PW10, put on the street lights) ritual. The rituals are to invite all the water and earth spirits to attend the offering during the Pu Tu or 'Sai Tai Yau* (*9A, to worship the numerous spirits) of the Chiao festival). The prayer book the Obaku Buddhists used for their morning and night rituals is \"Obaku Zenlin Choobo Kashoo\" (R). The priests called this daily work \"Zenlin Kashoo\" (M).\n\nSee below.\n\n12\n\nPlate 21.\n\n13\n\nPlates 22, 23.\n\n14 The \"Pang' was a book-form name-list in yellow. It had 8 pages with an introduction explaining the reason for holding a Pu Tu. (The introduction is printed in the Appendix).\n\n15 See the introduction to the Pang printed in the Appendix.\n\n16 The beach is at the western end of the Prefecture.\n\n17 Plate 24.\n\n18\n\nSee footnote 10.\n\n19\n\n20\n\nPlate 25.\n\nThe book used for the ritual was \"Yoga Enkoo Kahan\" (1⁄2μÅμ) which is similar to that used in Hong Kong during the 'Sai Tai Yau' ritual. According to an old taoist in Hong Kong, Mr. Lam Pui ( ), the gesture is called \"Poh Yuk” (Z, to break Hell), and through this the ghosts are released and able to come for reincarnation and cross over.\n\n21 Plates 26, 27, 28.\n\n22\n\nNo meat was allowed in the festival area. However, meat was presented at the Ming-che VII. One informant explained that it was because the dead like meat, and one committee member sighed and told me that \"We have no way, because they are from the other Provinces (of China) (##A)\".\n\n20 The sect started from Monk Yin Yuan (C) of Fu-ch'in (Mili), Hokkien. He was invited by the General of the Tokugawa Bankufu (UK) in 1654, In the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210467, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "55 \n\nremoved in 1952 was coincidental). The 14th day of the 7th month was the day for remembering all those who at death had received no proper burial. Any seafaring community would be likely to know of many such, and like most Hong Kong Boat People, Kau Sai's fishermen marked the month of the 'Hungry Ghosts' with ceremonies of exorcism, both privately on the junks and publicly in the temple. The day of the Moon Festival (the 15th day of the 8th month) was the next occasion for making family offerings in the temple, and on the Double Ninth came the second of the annual dates for visiting the family graves.\n\nOn the 10th day of the 10th month a public offering of pork (and/or fish) was made to Shui Shing Ye, whose image stood next to that of Hung Shing Kung in the temple, and after that came the celebration of the winter solstice (fixed, of course, by the solar calendar, like Ch'ing Ming, but falling usually in the eleventh month). Finally, on the 15th day of the 12th month a pig was slaughtered and offered in the temple on behalf of the community as a whole in public thanksgiving for the successful completion of another year before the preparations for the New Year ceremonies once again got under way.\n\nOnly four of these ritual occasions were publicly observed in the sense that the offerings made and ceremonies performed were provided at joint expense and on behalf of the village as a whole. The rest were private, that is family celebrations, taking place on or about the same dates but quite independently. The four public occasions were the festivals of two gods of the local temple, Hung Shing Kung (13th of 2nd month) and Shui Shing Ye (10th of 10th month), the exorcism of the Hungry Ghosts (14th of 7th month) and the general thanksgiving at the end of the year (15th of 12th month). By far the most spectacular of these was the festival for Hung Shing Kung, for which a group of priests was always engaged to carry out the religious ceremonies and an opera troupe performed plays on five consecutive nights and four days. The organisation of this festival, which involved the collection and disbursement of well over 10,000 Hong Kong dollars each year, was much the most important single joint activity in Kau Sai.\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210472, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "60\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nusually returned to anchor at the festival anchorage (long-liners for the evening performances, purse-seiners for those in the afternoon), instead of going back to Kau Sai.\n\nThe other occasions for making offerings in Kau Sai's temple, like those for visiting a family's graves, were “private” affairs. That is, the rituals were performed by each family independently. There would be a homeward movement of all Kau Sai junks at these times, but there was neither coordination of ritual observances nor village-wide ritual significance. There were, however, two exceptions to this rule. The exorcism of the Hungry Ghosts, in the 7th month, and the General Thanksgiving, in the 12th, were communal occasions. For the former, ritual experts from Sai Kung were employed, their payment coming out of communal funds; but it was not necessary for all Kau Sai people to be present, and my records show no indication of particularly high attendances at the anchorage on these occasions. The General Thanksgiving (chow shan) was a different matter again. This was the only ceremony in the year at which sacrificial meat was shared out among the families, and everyone who counted himself a Kau Sai man came. None of these occasions drew outside visitors.\n\nSome of the celebrations connected with the life cycle and having, like the annual ceremonies, recreational and sociable as much as ritual aspects, took everyone from time to time to Sai Kung and Shaukiwan where the floating restaurants were. Not every boat family could afford a restaurant party for a new baby's \"coming out\", or a special birthday, but anyone who could afford it would try to hold one. Weddings in particular required that one's guests be feasted, and such parties and most of the ceremonials connected with them were always held on restaurant boats. Other occasional feasts would also be given there. For instance, the owner of a new junk usually received congratulatory gifts from his friends; in return, he would invite them to a dinner on one of the floating restaurants in Shaukiwan or, more usually, Sai Kung. Funerals, too, took place ashore. The proper accoutrements and officiants had to be brought from one or other of these two towns, but the actual burials were in quiet places on the coastal hills.\n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210542, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "130\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\nChina ancestral spirits, while fundamentally benevolent with regard to their descendants, are on occasion punitive, and that in some communities they can simply be malicious.44\n\nThis repeats the pattern already observed at Rome, and a further parallel should be mentioned at this point. When the manes act with malevolent intent, we have seen that they are situated in the hostile and aggressive category of larvae, or ghosts. If a Chinese spirit tormented by neglect attacks its descendants, whether for the sake of vindictiveness or to draw attention to its pitiable condition, it undergoes a similar transformation and enters the ghostly realm of the kuei, for it is now behaving in the hostile manner normally associated with ghosts.45 These form a vast society, for viewed from the perspective of any given individual, all spirits save for one's own beneficent ancestors constitute kuei. Still, certain species of ghosts are generally considered to be more dangerous than others—the same types that we have already encountered in Rome. Those who are sentenced to perpetual starvation and misery because they lack descendants to honour them have good reason to be aggressive; hence the intense desire for male offspring that Hsu remarks in West Town, and the total absence of bachelors and spinsters in the community.46 Individuals who have died before their time, and especially those who have met violent ends, are also angry and jealous of the living, whom they terrorize whenever possible.47 In China as in Rome, ghosts are evil spirits, demanding and dangerous.\n\nCult practices in Rome and China\n\nIf there is a marked similarity in the attitude the Romans and Chinese exhibit toward the spirits of their dead, and in the interplay between the latter and the living, one might naturally expect to find a high degree of correspondence between their cult practices as well. This is in fact the case. In each society, for example, there is an annual celebration designed to placate the ghosts.\n\nThe Chinese Festival of the Hungry Ghosts takes place on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. On this date, the gates", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210543, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "131 \n\n* \n\nof the underworld are thrown open, and the spirits of the dead are free to wander at will. Everyone is obligated to propitiate their own ancestors at this time, but especial care is taken to appease the hungry ghosts, the kinless and neglected who are most likely to seek vengeance against the living. In Taiwan, the ancestral offerings are set up inside the house, those to the ghosts outside. The latter can be elaborate: throughout the island, it is customary to offer a meal of fully prepared food, and sometimes beer and cigarettes in addition.* \n\nThe Roman lemuria occurs somewhat earlier in the year. The ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth of May were regarded as among the unluckiest days on the Roman calendar, for this was the season when their wandering spirits, equally tormented by neglect, were thought to be most active. It was on these dates that the sacred threshold of the Roman home was thought most susceptible to violation, and it was with the aim of warding off the ghosts that the Romans practised the obscure and ancient rites of the lemuria. These are described in great detail by the poet Ovid in his Fasti (5.419-444): the worshipper arose at midnight, made a magical sign with his thumb to protect himself from any ghosts that might be present, and washed his hands in pure spring water. He then took nine black beans and, with face averted, cast them aside, chanting each time the words “these I cast; with these beans I redeem me and mine.\" The ghosts followed behind, gathering up and consuming the beans, and after they had been pacified in this manner, they were urged to depart the house by a loud clash of bronze and a second incantation, again repeated nine times: \"spirits of our fore-fathers, go forth.\" \n\nThe principal festival of Chinese ancestral worship per se is the Ch'ing Ming, now celebrated each year on the fifth of April. It has been richly detailed by F.L.K. Hsu, who accompanied a West Town family to a graveyard in 1942. The tombs housing the remains of the parents of the head of the family were first decked with flowers, then offered wine and a variety of cooked dishes; thereafter, each member of the family offered incense and more wine, and mock paper money was burnt while they kowtowed before the graves. When the ritual was concluded, the \n\n: \n\n||| \n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210546, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "134\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\nmuch the same thing, despite the fact that her village was land-rich: in Ch'i-nan, observance of the death-day anniversary “is a sign that the deceased has living descendants who personally remember him.\"58 Long ago, Sir Henry Maine likewise concluded that in classical antiquity the great-grandfather was the most remote ascendant to whom offerings would customarily be tendered.59 It is for the Roman historian a tempting hypothesis, and there is a certain amount of evidence that can be submitted in its support. Ovid speaks in general terms of the sacrifices which the grandson offers to his grandfather (Fasti 5.426), while Aeneas, the hero of the Virgilian epic, who celebrates the death-day anniversary of his father Anchises but not that of his grandfather (Aen. 5.49-103), typifies the more specific materials at our disposal. More to the point, as we shall see, the Romans were not at all optimistic in this regard, and devised plans that at times are ingenious in an effort to secure perpetual offerings. Still, we cannot say with any confidence at what moment they expected these to cease in the absence of such careful planning. There must be a reasonable body of data at hand before a generalization such as Maine's is warranted, and in this instance, that threshold has not yet been reached.\n\nThis example notwithstanding, there are questions that can profitably be explored, and we may begin with a deceptively simple item: what is it that obligates any given individual to sacrifice to another? More precisely, is this obligation defined in terms of kinship, the transmission of property, or a combination of both? In the Chinese context, it is universally agreed that an individual who is descended from the lineage ancestors, who has married and produced sons, and transmitted his property to them, must be accorded an honourable place in the ancestral shrine and receive the sacrificial offerings. Many married couples, however, remain childless, or only have daughters, who are destined to venerate the spirits of their husbands' ascendants. What options are available to these unfortunate persons, if they are to avoid becoming kinless hungry ghosts? In Ch'i-nan, Ahern discovered that an only child has an absolute obligation to attend to his or her ancestors, and especially the parents and grandparents. This duty extends to a daughter who has married, a son who has married uxorilocally, and even to a child adopted", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211653, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 68, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "43\n\nto the Afterworld during the major festival of the Hungry Ghosts.\n\nIn Chinese ethnic communities other than the Fukienese, pestilence deities are rarely known as such, though individual 'deified doctors' (deities prayed to for specific cures and illnesses) are believed to have special abilities to prevent or cure plague and pestilence. They are not referred to or considered as Wang Yeh. A good example of this is the image of Sui Ching-po (#24(1)) brought to Hong Kong in 1894 during a major outbreak of plague.\n\n4\n\nAmongst the large number of Pestilence Wang Yeh temples in Taiwan the most popular is, as already mentioned, at Nan K'un Shen at Peimen, just north of Tainan. This modern temple is located on the site where the Five Wang Yeh are believed to have first arrived in Taiwan from Fukien province some four centuries ago aboard their Spirit Boat. It began, as did most modern temples, as a tiny shrine of mud and stone, and as time passed and the community became wealthier, and of course, when the cult proved efficacious, the building progressed from wattle and daub, to wood and then to brick and tile. The Nan K'un Shen (A) temple contains a blend of cults, of Wang Yeh, of a protective general and the spirits of the unknown dead, the Yu Ying Kung.\n\nLegend has it that several hundred years ago a youth looking after cattle took shelter from the rain under a tree and stayed dry due to the special quality of the tree. The boy died young, seventeen according to some, and was buried under the tree as he had stipulated in his last wishes. From time to time his spirit, which was at first called the Spirit of the Broom (k) appeared to villages who built a small shrine for him referring to him now as Yu Ying Kung (A).\n\nHe was looked upon as the 'prince' of the surrounding area. However, later five Wang Yeh arrived in their Spirit Boat and the spirit of a general was brought over to Tainan; they asked the Yu Ying Kung spirit to permit them to have a temple in which they could live to be built nearby. The Yu Ying Kung refused and said that he had stuck a needle into the ground to mark his possession of the territory. The Wang Yeh countered this by claiming that they had buried a coin in the ground and thus they too had a claim on the territory. It came to blows until Kuan Yin intervened and a compromise was reached with the two temples standing side by side sharing one common wall which separated them. Thus it is that the Plague Gods (The Wang Yeh), the general (an unidentified and unnamed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211950, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 365, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "340\n\nrespected person in a family. I found in Wing Lung Wai that the households take their turn to take care of the incense and lamps of their san-teng. It probably plays an important part in major celebrations: in Tai Hong Wai I noticed that wedding deui-lyuns couplets had been put on both the san-teng doors and the village gate.\n\nOf a similar status were the places for the Gods of Earth and Grain, where communal worship (jou-se) is held once or twice a year. In addition, there is the hoi-dang ceremony for the new born children of the village. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, and Wing Lung Wai village-level collective worship includes a jiu. It is held once in seven years at Tai Hong Wai, once in five years, at Kat Hing Wai, and once in ten years at Wing Lung Wai. The Tai Hong Wai case is probably representative. The rituals are simpler than the one for Kam Tin as a whole, and lasted only two days and one evening. The main feature is the offering of paper clothing to hungry ghosts.\n\n49\n\nIn some cases the social unit involved in the rites for the new born and other collective rites is a lineage segment in a village and in one case a main village and its associated smaller settlements. Some villages have more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain. Shui Tau has two. The one belongs to the whole village of Shui Tau while the other one belongs only to the descendants of Gam-Tin jou, who have their hoi-dang there. Similarly, there is more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain in Shui Mei. One of them is worshipped by the Git-Sau jou people alone, who make offerings of paper clothing there at the Yu-Laan Festival. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, its jiu, and the rite for the newly born include as participants the villagers of Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. The hoi-dang at the Ching-Lok ancestral hall is not precisely a lineage event: only his descendants living in Shui Tau and Shui Mei take part.\n\nBesides worship associated with membership in residential and sometimes partially lineage segment units, there is worship organized by ritual associations. There are quite a few ritual associations (san-wui) in Kam Tin. Each has its landed property, which ranges from one daam-jung (about 65 thousand square feet) to about 500 thousand square feet of farm land. A share was inherited by all the descendants of the original shareholders. In some cases, one share was actually shared by a few dozen people. Some of the shares were acquired by the present holder by purchase. Worship by these associations takes place once a year, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212095, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "14\n\nvillage scholar once described to me by Tsuen Wan elders as \"having no degree, but scholarly (man hok ka), liking books and study\"; persons who might themselves be schoolmasters or could otherwise maintain a reputation for being educated men. The influence of such persons in the village was correspondingly great.25\n\n5. Augmented by Other Means of Ethical Education\n\n(a) Story-telling\n\nOne other means of educating children in the standard and expected norms was through story-telling and related pastimes. In response to questions put to elders in the Tsuen Wan villages about books and story-telling in their youth, various titles were mentioned, some of them surviving in hand-copied editions. It had mostly been the elderly villagers of their day who had owned such books and, in their leisure hours, had transmitted their contents to the younger members of their families. Judging from the titles listed, the moral content of many of these stories was high, emphasizing such qualities as loyalty, charity and filial piety, denouncing oppression and injustice, and showing the old principle of retributive justice in operation.26 Though intended mainly for amusement, their contents had the effect of reinforcing the ethical indoctrination received from other sources. These customary extensions to formal education were the more influential because there had been no newspapers or periodicals on sale in the Tsuen Wan shops in their youth, i.e. in the period 1910-1925. Thus the field of information had then been restricted to traditional reading material and its various means of transmission.27\n\n(b) The Man and Puppet Opera Stories\n\nWe can now pass from books and stories to the opera. Even in the 1970s, it was possible to glimpse the hold which the old entertainment still exerted upon the people. In Tsuen Wan, they still flocked to see the traditional opera performances held in the temporary matsheds erected on waste or temporarily vacant ground at festival times, on the temple deities' birthdays, and at important events in the calendar such as the Hungry Ghosts' Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and the Lunar New Year.\n\nIn describing the staging of plays to celebrate the birthdays of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212109, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 51, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "28 \n\nmembership of an alliance.\" \n\nIII. Studies on Jiao Festivals in Hong Kong: the 1980s \n\na. Trend \n\n18 \n\nThere are not as many studies of Jiao festivals in Hong Kong as in Taiwan. The earliest study in Hong Kong is probably Taylor's 1953 ethnographical essay on the Cheung Chau Jiao festival. The article was re-printed in every issue of the special annual bulletin for the Bun festival in Cheung Chau until the beginning of the 80s. The late Prof. B.E. Ward noticed very early the importance of the Jiao festival to the understanding of rural society. Her account of the festival itself, however, appeared only briefly in her introductory guide book on festivals in Hong Kong. Dr. James Hayes has also noticed the importance of the celebration during his studies on rural communities in the outlying islands and new towns in Kowloon. However, only some of the celebrations were given brief mention in his 1983 book. Mathias' study on the 1975 Kam Tin Jiao festival is probably the earliest comprehensive study of the festival. It is a pity, however, that it has not been published. Kani, Obuchi and Yoshihara are probably the earliest Japanese scholars to realize the significance of Jiao festivals in Hong Kong. Kani, in his study of boat people in Hong Kong regards the Jiao on Cheung Chau island as an event, like the Hungry Ghost Festival, to feed wandering ghosts. Obuchi, working with a Taoist priest, Mr. Chan Wah, studied the symbolic meanings of different Taoist rituals performed in the 1975 Shatin Jiao festival. Yoshihara in a section of his paper on religion in Hong Kong briefly described the 1977 Tai Wai, Sha Tin, event. Beginning in 1979, Tanaka and Segawa commenced active data collection on the festival. Tanaka began his extensive research in Hong Kong in 1979. At least 14 different Jiao festivals were recorded in his three books. Segawa joined the research later, from 1983 to 1985, and several articles have since been published in Japanese. \n\n20 \n\n22 \n\nThe nineteen eighties saw a growth in interest in Jiao festivals among local institutions and scholars. In 1980, students and lecturers of the History Department (Dr. D. Faure), the Sociology Department (the late Prof. B.E. Ward), the Anthropology Department (Dr. S.H. Wang) and the Music Department (the late Dr. B.C. Lu) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong [CUHK] began concurrent studies on Jiao", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212574, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "108\n\nAlthough one of the above six destinations is the normal fate of a person's heavenly soul, earthly souls reside in graves or ancestral tablets to be worshipped by descendants. Terrestrial souls can even be divided between tablets on altars in family members' homes and in ancestral halls. Views vary on this 'multiple-soul' principle. As do those from theologians, regarding life after death for a Christian.\n\nFor the Chinese, ancestral spirits, gods, devils and ghosts play important roles. Supernatural intervention and magical powers have to be reckoned with. Malevolent, wandering spirits that have no male descendants to worship them must be appeased or they can bring bad luck, sickness and death. Makeshift altars are sometimes set up in streets, joss sticks are burned and offerings made, especially on the 15th day of the Seventh Moon at the Hungry Ghosts Festival (Yu Lan). With the fundamental dualism of Chinese cosmology, devils and their cohorts are yin, ‘inauspicious and gloomy'. Conversely gods, idols and the like are yang and 'lucky and bright'.\n\nIn this study, father died in 1959. When windows rattled, doors opened mysteriously, or troubles befell the family, his spirit, rightly or wrongly, was at one time suspected. This had to be propitiated by visits to the temple. When death strikes, a family tends to become even more superstitious. Scissors and knives are hidden to avoid children cutting themselves and thereby inadvertently hurting the corpse. This is termed lei hei (##) meaning an edged tool or weapon which can injure.\n\nIn this study, a Buddhist prayer in plastic holders was placed in strategic positions around family members' homes, including on the eldest daughter's bedside table. Although a person is a Christian, there is nothing like hedging protection. One granddaughter who had yam ngaan (dark eyes), namely psychic powers, heard a woman ghost wailing at night. When she placed the prayer on her bedside table, it kept quiet. This prayer could be rendered ineffective if taken into a church. Chinese always seem much closer to the spirit world than the average Westerner. For example, some of the older drivers on late-night buses travelling along the Pok Fu Lam Road stop and open the door whether anyone is waiting there or not. This is said to be to allow wandering spirits to get on and go back to the cemetery for the night.\n\nChinese dislike people dying at home as it is considered 'unclean'. If they do, the body is removed as soon as possible, often in a woven,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213833, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "158\n\nof Ta-shih-wang E, the keeper of ghosts who maintained order, provided food and clothing to the hungry ghosts, and then took them back to the netherworld.\" Vegetarian fast was required during the chao period of three days and four nights. Puppet shows were also performed for several days to entertain both human and divine participants. Chanters hired from outside were responsible for the liturgy, which included scripture reciting, praying, and the burning of paper offerings. As for local villagers, they mainly came to enjoy the free vegetarian feasts and puppet shows. As pointed out by David Faure, the festival is an occasion for popular entertainment, as much as for worship.\"\n\nAn important ritual of the chiao ceremony was a gala parade called hsing-hsiang † (walking through a neighbourhood of villages) held on the third day. The image of Houwang was carried in the procession led by chanters and followed by male villagers. Firecrackers were set off to clear the road and when passing a village, joss sticks, candles, and paper offerings were burnt to expel all ghosts and leave the local population safe and flourishing with Houwang's blessings. \"As the principal local deity, Houwang obviously played a crucial role during the chiao festival. Deities from other districts, such as the Empress of Heaven from Ma Wan Island or Chak Lap Kok, were not invited to the ceremony.\" Thus, the parade embodied the strong territorial sense of the community, publicly affirming the hsiung as a neighbourhood of specific villages. Villages passed by paraders, including Shek Mun Kap, Mok Ka, Shek Lau Po, Ngau Au, Nim Yuen, San Tau, Ma Wan Chung, Ma Wan, Ling Pei, Wong Ka Wai, Lung Tseng Tau, and Ba Mei, were all considered members of the Tung Chung community. While village representatives took charge of preparations for the chao days, a body called the Chieh-fang-chu-hui (Neighbourhood Association) was assigned responsibility for the preparatory work for Houwang's Birthday Festival. From the mid-1920s, however, the Neighbourhood Association had to also assume responsibility for preparations for the chiao festival, replacing the village representatives. Concomitant with this change, Tung Chung Street, where the number of shops had increased with time, replaced Shek Mun Kap as the local social and economic centre. Various goods, including groceries, medicinal materials, cooked food, coffee and tea, coffins, and even opium, were now sold on Tung Chung Street. \"As the position of Shek Mun Kap and the role of village representatives in the chiao festival declined,\n\n36", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214820, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 235, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "baleful influences, the population was almost totally reliant upon assistance from religious personnel, and especially from the Taoists who specialized in this field. There was a tremendous demand for their services by the common people, who were generally anxious to solicit supernatural aid through their good offices.\" The work involved the specialists in pre-emptive as well as remedial roles, both warding off and putting right. Services such as these were confined to the priests and nuns of Buddhism and Taoism, since Confucians did not have a body of religious personnel of a comparable kind.\n\nServices for the People: Popular Buddhism and Taoism\n\nBy the late 19th century, it was as difficult to differentiate between some aspects of the practice and ritual of Buddhist and Taoist priests as it had become hard to determine the precise derivation or affiliation of the religious texts and morality books of Buddhism and Taoism described above. This seems to have been especially the case in the popular religion and in the ritual services provided for the people. In 1882, the American missionary scholar B.C. Henry had stated that:\n\n\"The worship of the spirits of the dead being a universal practice, they [the Buddhists] have taken it under their wing, and in conjunction with the Taoists superintend the ceremonies of the Yu-lan-Ui or “association for feeding the dead,” which offers annual worship to hungry ghosts. The Buddhists, by adopting this festival of All Souls, and emphasizing it by their doctrine of transmigration, have gained wide influence and great popularity.”20\n\nHenry also mentioned that the Taoists:\n\n\"perform daily liturgical services in the cloisters, and are employed in special rites at funerals, or in houses of mourning to repeat prayers for the dead,\"21 adding that Taoist priests “utter good luck chants at feasts, at the laying of foundations for houses and temples, or on any occasion that may come up.\" Such services were also available from the Buddhist personnel.22", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215074, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "127\n\nthe sacred and the secular.\n\nSacred time can be separated into liturgical and non-liturgical. Liturgical dates are those linked to the lunar calendar such as Yu Lan Hui, the Chinese All-Soul's Day, celebrated on the 15th of the seventh lunar month [best known as the Hungry Ghosts Festival] and the anniversaries of the gods and immortals; whilst the non-liturgical are fixed dates marking the seasonal changes. Only two such non-liturgical dates are still observed - the grave sweeping at Qing Ming, usually on the 5th of April, 106 days after the Winter Solstice, and the Winter Solstice itself. Secular dates are national state holidays.\n\nHumans accept the depth and space of time as a natural aspect of our daily lives. To people the world over a day, depending upon the culture, consists of the period between noon and noon, midnight and midnight, or from dawn to dawn. The lunar month has been a common time-marker since time immemorial, with the Chinese lunar calendar being based on the full moon on the 15th day of the month and the new moon, on the first. To many Chinese, as indeed to a number of other agricultural civilisations, time did not stretch back into eternity but came round again and again, it was cyclical, and again like other civilisations a zodiac evolved.\n\nBefore the days of the cheap watch or clock, time to the average Chinese man-in-the-street was simply the year, which is the interval between each spring equinox, the month and the forenoon, afternoon and evening of the day. Chinese peasants were able to avoid the bourgeois vice of clock-watching. However, certain times were rigid; for example, the times of the opening and closing of the city gates; these were usually regulated by dawn and dusk, and for watchmen who walked the dark streets who knew from experience reasonably accurately when to call out the hour. For the majority of Chinese another important aspect of time is the lunar date of birth and death, as no marriage could be arranged without the exchange of time and date of birth of the potential bride and bridegroom.\n\nHowever, to the Daoist time never stops and no state can be retained. Change is the only constant. Everything is continually changing but for each action there is a reaction so that the cosmic balance remains the same.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]