[ { "id": 204448, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CHINA'S 35 MILLION NON-CHINESE\n\n69\n\nTable II lists the numbers of people in each ethnic group distributed by provinces in south and central China. In brief, the T'ai-related groups lead with some 10 million people at present. They are followed by the Tibeto-Burman related group with some 8.4 million, followed by the Miao-Yao related group with about 3.4 million. The greatest concentration of minorities in any one group is among the Chuang in the Tai group. The Chuang live in a compact body numbering some seven million in Kwangsi. The Miao, however, are the most widely distributed of all ethnic groups, being found in significant numbers in every province of south and central China except Kiangsi, although their chief strength is in Kweichow. Yunnan, by all odds, is the most complex province ethnically. Of the 30 national minorities listed by the Census for 1953, some twenty-four are found in Yunnan. This Census apparently may need considerable revision when the minorities are scrutinized more closely. Thus, it listed only 90,000 so-called T'u-chia, which was proclaimed to be a newly discovered ethnic group hitherto confused with Han Chinese and Miao because of their degrees of acculturation. A personal check by Fang Jen revealed over 300,000, and a still more detailed check in subsequent years disclosed that actually these were 549,000 that should be so classified and, from their original cultural traits, they belonged in the Yi-related group. They occupy an area in northwest Hunan.\n\n44\n\nThe Yi comprise so many sub-groups under different names (there are 40 sub-tribes in Yunnan alone) that confusion is understandable. In northwest Yunnan such sub-groups of the Yi as the Na-khi or Na-hsi and Li-su live in the region between the great bends of the Chin-sha river and the Burma border. In the western part of this region are the Nu, Tu-lung, and Ching-p'o, occupying parts of the Salween and Mekong drainage of north Yunnan. Farther south in the drainages of these rivers are the related La-hu and A-ch'ang. The Pai people, in a solid bloc on the plain of Erh Hai (Lake Erh), have been thought by some writers, including this one, to be a T'ai-related people, but are listed by Bruk as a Yi sub-group. In the west bank region of the Red river of Yunnan are the sub-group known as the Han-yi. The Yi proper are scattered over the three southwestern provinces,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204458, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 90, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "Hakka kept themselves to themselves in different villages and there has been a general antipathy between them until recent times.\n\nWhether Punti or Hakka the villages were inhabited by clans: either in villages in which there were only persons of one clan descended from a common ancestor; or in villages in which lived several groups of families of different name, that is several clans, having come there together or at different times. Examples of both kinds of villages, large and small, are to be found all over the New Territory. Both Punti and Hakka clans have a history of wandering from the north throughout the last ten centuries at least and it is clear that for all the families who came to what is now the leased territory it was the end of the line, the end of a chapter of wandering that was often interrupted for centuries in some location elsewhere in the province.\n\nAt Fan Pui, for instance, a small village on Lantau Island, the FUNG clan5 arrived there in the eleventh generation after the first ancestor had entered Kwangtung province. The twenty-second generation are living there still in an adjoining bay, having had to make way for the Shek Pik reservoir scheme. The family came from Ma Tau Wai in Kowloon and had made their way there from Nam Hung district in the extreme north of the province after spending some time in Hok Shan district on the way south. Their neighbours the TSUI clan* of Shek Pik claim twenty-seven generations in Kwangtung and fifteen in Lantau: that is, nearly four hundred years. The first ancestor came from a village in Nam Cheung district in Kiangsi province and settled in Tung Kun district. Eventually, following the example of other members of the main branch who gradually moved southwards, a TSUI of the thirteenth generation came to Shek Pik and was buried there. Their clan history mentions that members of successive generations before the move to Lantau were officials and military officers who won the imperial favour in the Ming dynasty, whereas the FUNG genealogy gives no such claims to fame for its progenitors. Both these clans are Cantonese.\n\nThe condition of the peasantry impressed Lockhart favourably on the whole, \"The inhabitants, though by no means wealthy, seem to be, as a rule, comfortably well off and able to earn\n\nPage 80\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204767, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 70, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE\n\n59\n\non the land with indigenous wives, probably seized from the boat people; a process of assimilation which was repeated all over South China and accelerated by the disorder of the times which prevented their embarking on the precarious journey to their ancestral homes, which their own tradition places in the province Kiangsi,58\n\nThis then is the picture, or the jigsaw puzzle. Subsequent work by those more qualified than I may show that I have put some of the pieces in the wrong place; may show indeed that some of the pieces are in the wrong puzzle, since I have indicated that there is yet no certainty whether we have one jigsaw puzzle or four. There are many Chinese sources into which I have dipped but which I have not thoroughly sifted. There are other Chinese sources to which I have not been able to obtain access: most important of these are the earlier editions of the San On Yuen Chi,123 to which the 1819 edition makes several tantalizing references, but reproduces only their prefaces. I have suggested how the geologists can contribute to this study. The botanists and agronomists should be able to reconstruct a general picture of the local flora a thousand years ago before removal of the forest cover started the rapid erosion which has defaced these hills. The archaeologists should do some really intensive work between Castle Peak and Mong Tseng. The Arabists and Indologists should contribute accounts of the voyages made by traders during the Tang139 and Sung132 dynasties. And the book collectors should hunt for the previous editions of the San On122 and Tung Kwun31 gazetteers.124 The first edition of the San On Yuen Chi123 was that of Chan Kwols of which the preface was written by Yau Tai-kin64 the sixth holder of the office of chi yuen.161 He wrote it in 1587 at which time there must have been several villages which preserved their former language, dress and customs which could not have failed to be noted. Even the list of Hakka149 and Cantonese villages in this and the intervening editions would teach us something about the subsequent pattern of occupation and agriculture and thereby give us some clues to other problems, such as the origin of the Hakka, which may have a bearing on the subject with which I have dealt today.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205076, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 32, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "The Five Great Clans\n\nII\n\n27\n\nAll these five clans have histories of gradual migration from the North downwards, the movement taking centuries in some cases. The Tang Clan's genealogies show that in the Sung Dynasty their ancestors moved down into Kwangtung Province from Kian Prefecture25 in Kiangsi Province.26 The Hau genealogy records that they moved down from Pun Yue27 in the Sung Dynasty, but does not say when and whence they moved to Pun Yue.28 The Pangs probably came from Kiangsi at the end of the Sung Dynasty.29 The Lius journeyed southwards from Kiangsi to Fukien in the Sung Dynasty, worked their way down through Fukien, and came to Kwangtung Province in the Yuan Dynasty. The Mans came from Kiangsi to Po On30 in the Sung Dynasty, and then moved to their present villages during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.32\n\nAll are Cantonese (Punti33), though one of them at least has a tradition of Hakka34 origin.35 Exactly when and why this lineage should have changed from Hakka customs and speech to Punti is of course impossible to say, and it was probably only a gradual change, but it seems reasonable on two scores that, once large and wealthy, the lineage should change. Firstly, the common path to perpetuation and expansion of wealth and influence was the production of scholars and officials; and in the Sanon District Hakka examination candidates were discriminated against under a quota system whereby eight Punti candidates were allowed to pass the Prefectural Examination in Canton compared with only two Hakka.36 This proportion may be set against the figures of village numbers given by Krone—579 Punti and 275 Hakka.37 Secondly, the other large and influential clans of the area were Punti, and it would be easier in the spheres of communications and bride-finding and bride-giving for a lineage with pretensions to be Punti-oriented rather than Hakka.\n\nIII\n\nWith the help of an agricultural map of the New Territories it is possible to discover the relative values of the land which these clans acquired, and to compare this information with the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205112, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n63\n\ntestify to their Oriental origin, such as the lute (from Arabic al-lūt, \"wood”), and even in our century we have witnessed the spread of Negro jazz over the whole world. A similar development took place in China, and there are many passages in Yüan literature where foreign music and musicians are mentioned.15 In this connection we should perhaps save from oblivion the name of one of these musicians from the Near East. We find her name in the Ch'ing-lou chi “Records from the Green Bowers\", an anonymous work dated 1364 which gives a list of the most popular courtesans under the Yüan, together with a description of their accomplishments. Among these ladies of easy virtue we find one solitary girl from the Western Regions mentioned among her many Chinese professional sisters. She was a Mohammedan girl by the name of Miliha (or Maliha) praised for her sweet and clear voice and her skill in singing. She was, alas, not beautiful, but we are told that she was a superb theatrical performer. The author of the book once made her acquaintance and was duly impressed by her acting.16\n\nThere must have been many influences from Near Eastern folklore that reached China under the Yüan. I shall quote here only two examples. A well-known Near Eastern folk-tale motif, that of the honest loser, the greedy finder and the Solomonic judge, can be traced both in European medieval and Chinese literature. It reached Europe via Spain through the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsi of Toledo (thirteenth century A.D.), a work which contains many Arab stories and anecdotes that subsequently became immensely popular in the West. Boccaccio has not a few stories from the Disciplina Clericalis in his Decamerone and also at least one motif in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, that of the three caskets, comes from that source. The story of the loser, the finder and the judge can be found in European literature in many versions, the classical German version being J. P. Hebel's \"Der kluge Richter\". In China we find this story in a text dated 1360. Here the story is set in a typical Chinese environment and being given some additional touches typical of China. The most interesting feature is, however, that the Chinese text does not present the anecdote as a mere story but as a historical event. The clever judge to whom the final solution of the case is entrusted was a perfectly real person, a circuit prefect from Kiangsi Province. This shows the Chinese tendency to attach literary clichés and even,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205399, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "154\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n1626 the Manchus were stopped in their tracks at Ning-yüan by the foreign artillery. But this setback was not to last very long. They saw the usefulness of these weapons and set about casting some themselves. These proved effective in the conquest of the northern frontier (1643-44) and in the years to follow as their armies plunged on down across both the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers to Kwangtung and Kweichow.\n\nColumbia University\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nNOTES\n\n1 In this I have consulted Mr. C. N. Tay of the American Museum of Numismatics, New York City.\n\n2 The inscription on the cannon is given below. This cannon was found lying on open ground in the Tsiu Keng sub-district in the northern part of the New Territories. It was reported by Mr. R. E. dos Remedios, Senior Land Assistant in the District Office, Taipo in August 1966. The cannon was completely exposed and must have been in this condition for a long time. It is not clear how it came to be there.\n\n* This cannon, which was mentioned in passing in the note on the Tung Chung Fort, at p. 148 of Vol. 4 of the Journal (1964), was dredged from the sea in 1956, either from Kowloon Bay in the course of work on the extension to Hong Kong airport or from Fat Tong Mun (otherwise called Joss House Bay) in the approaches to Hong Kong Harbour—sources differ. It is now mounted with a plaque in Chinese and English outside the Central Government Offices (East Wing), Hong Kong. It was heavier than the one recently discovered; 300 catties as compared with 300 catties. The Chinese inscription, which is much the same, is also given below.\n\n4 An insight into the happenings of these troubled times is preserved in the family record of the Tsui (徐) clan formerly of Shek Pik on Lantau island, to which their ancestor had removed in the 16th Century. The family came from Mong Ngau Tun (望牛墩) in Tung Kwun district (東莞) where they had settled in the Sung dynasty from Kiangsi province. There was fighting in Tung Kwun against the Manchus after their success in the North. The record which gives no precise date for this occurrence, though it must have been within a few years of the change of dynasty in 1644 — reads\n\n—\n\nSau Yeung-kap, a civil officer, and Li Shing-tung, a general, instigated an uprising against the new dynasty in Tung Kwun. As the revolt gathered momentum, oxen and horses were killed for food, and rice and corn became as expensive as pearls. For miles, one could see nothing animate; the fields were covered with dead bodies. In some places, human flesh was eaten by the starving people, and piles of human bones filled the ruined houses.\n\nA detachment of the Manchu army was sent to besiege the district city, then occupied by the rebels. In the conflict that ensued, human beings were massacred as though they were ants, and law-abiding people and bad characters alike were destroyed.\n\nFortunately, our clansmen, then living at Mong Ngau Tun, escaped this calamity. However, many of our former neighbours and fellow-natives in Ming Ka Lane lost their lives and [as the record says in another place] all the dispensations of the previous dynasty were regarded as scrap paper.\n\n(I am grateful to Mr. Gilbert Louie for this translation. Ed) Readers will note that Li Shing-tung (Li Ch'eng-tung) is mentioned in Prof. LO Hsiang-lin's Additional Note where he is described as Governor of Kwangtung.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206075, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "150 \n\nS. F. BALFOUR \n\n• \n\n\"A merchant of Ta Ts'in (Eastern Roman Empire) came to the court of the Emperor Sun Chuan of Wu (in the present Shanghai region). When Chu-Ko Ko (in A.D. 226) had subdued Tan Yang (a place in the mountains on the Anhwei-Kiangsi border) he caught some dwarfs of the 'Black' tribe. The merchant when he saw them said that such people were rarely seen in his country. The emperor gave him ten of each, male and female. \n\n** \n\nIt is very doubtful whether our region was ever populated by these dwarfs, but the fact that their present distribution is somewhat that of the Indonesians raises an additional culture problem. In any case, we can see from these texts that South China, before the Chinese colonisation, was an agglomeration of peoples whose race and movements are too obscure for us to connect them with any certainty with the existing population, \n\nIV. THE COLONIZATION OF SOUTH CHINA \n\nIt is important to distinguish between the Chinese conquest of South China and its colonisation by peasants. The conquest of our region for instance occurred in 220 B.C.; it then became a remote part of the Chinese Empire. Its colonisation by Chinese peasants did not occur until over 1,000 years later and is in fact a comparatively recent development. \n\nThe armies sent to subjugate the aborigines by the first Emperor of Ts'in in 220 B.C. started from Chang Sha in modern Hunan province and crossed the mountains by five passes descending on our region somewhere to the east of Bias Bay and to the west upon the delta somewhere in the neighbourhood of San Wui. The object of the expedition was to open trade routes for the precious objects which came from the south — pearls, coral, ivory, etc. The region was incorporated into the military governorship of Nan Hai or the \"Southern Seaboard\", and to it were sent political prisoners who died in large numbers of fever. \n\nBesides holding the Canton estuary the Chinese armies moved west to another important centre of trade, the Tonkin delta. Here they established themselves in a place they called Chiao Chih which is now Hanoi. When the short-lived Ts'in dynasty came to an end, a Chinese general who had participated in the campaign of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206087, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "162 \n\nS. F. BALFOUR \n\nbefore it reached the coast line the Tang clan acquired considerable influence all over the semi-independent regions of South-east Kwangtung. They became feudal overlords of the populations and, as long as they could, helped to govern the territories they controlled for the Sung Emperors. When the Sungs were finally overcome and the Tartars reached the coast, their rôle became more that of farmers concerned in opening new areas to cultivation. They were pressed more closely into our region, and their political influence declined, although their cultural influence, absorbing as it did all the aboriginal elements and changing them into the Chinese mould, was potent and lasting.\n\nThe only source of the accounts of the Tang migration is in the family genealogy which was compiled in the Ming dynasty. It is based on authentic family records and although it contradicts itself in certain particulars, especially in dates, it must be regarded as an exact account. According to this genealogy the first ancestor of the local branch was Tang Han Fei who held an official post under the Sung dynasty in Kiangsi province. A preface to the genealogy says that he visited Kwangtung province but admits that it is not clear whether he reached this region or not. His great grandson Tang Fu Hsieh is considered the founder of the local branch. This man was a scholar who passed the public examination either in A.D. 1069 or 985 according to different versions. He, too, held an official post in Kiangsi and on retirement settled at Kam T'in, a fertile area north of the T'un Mun Valley. He brought from Kiangsi the bones of his forefathers which were buried in selected sites. The graves still exist and are particularly venerated by the Tangs.\n\nIt was Tang Fu Hsieh who carved the inscription which commemorates Han Yü on the summit of Mount Tun Mun and he also founded a school and a library at Kam T'in. His sons and his grandsons, however, did not stay there. They migrated further north into Tung Kun district where they founded houses which exist to this day. Owing to the presence of the family tombs, Kam T'in remained the property of the family and was probably visited every year, although they did not actually reside there. Three generations after Tang Fu Hsieh, five of his descendants, known as the \"five Yuans\" from their first names, made a division of the whole family properties which by then extended all over", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206504, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "46\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nwere still to be administered by the imperial commissioner of the five ports not only would he be unable to look after them all effectively also the foreign countries might not agree to it. Moreover the foreign countries trade at the port of Tientsin which is very close to the capital. If there is no great official residing at Tientsin with whom they can consult and transact affairs we are afraid that inconvenience will arise. We recommend that a superintendent of foreign trade be appointed for Newchwang, Tengchow and Tientsin to reside at Tientsin specifically to regulate affairs at those three ports. In Chihli, which is the vital metropolitan area, the governor-general has to control the entire province and cannot reside at Tientsin alone. Neither can the provincial financial and judicial commissioners, who each have their specific duties, conveniently hold the office of trade superintendent concurrently. So it is proposed that, following the precedent of the two Huai regions, the office of the salt administration of Ch'ang-lu be abolished and its administrative duties be transferred to the governor-general of Chihli. The salary of the salt administration office can then be given to the superintendent of trade entailing no additional establishment in order to economize. Control over the former customs revenue shall be administered concurrently by the superintendent for foreign trade who will make a separate report on it. We also recommend that an official seal without the title \"Imperial Commissioner\" be given to the superintendent in charge of foreign trade in the three ports. He should be allowed to take with him several secretaries to assist him in the administration. Whenever an important matter occurs he should be authorized to act in conjunction with the governors-general, governors and prefects of the three provinces concerned in the hope that matters may be dealt with smoothly.\n\nThe original imperial commissionership in charge of the five ports was held by the governor-general of the Liang-Kuang. In the ninth year of Hsien-feng [3 Feb. 1859-22 Jan. 1860] it was transferred to the control of the governor-general of Kiangsu, Kiangsi and Anhwei. We note that now there are three ports on the Yangtze newly added as well as Ch'aochow and Ch'iungchow in Kwangtung, Taiwan and Tamsui in Fukien, and therefore business will become more extensive. In fact we fear not only that governor-general Tseng Kuo-fan, who concurrently is in charge of the business, will find that 'however long the whip it will not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206842, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 119, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 113\n\nof Shui Pin Ts'uen, and enlarged to the size of a temple very soon after. It remains almost unaltered since except for the written characters over the door which were put there by Tang P'ooi Ch'oh (**) in the 27th year of Kwong Sui (***) of Ts'ing ( ) dynasty A.D. 1901.\n\nIt is the custom in China for men to count back the generations to their \"first ancestor.\" Thus a man may speak of himself as being the twentieth or fortieth generation meaning that he belongs to the twentieth or fortieth generation after one particular family ancestor who, by being the most ancient known forbear, or the founder of a particular branch or even the first of a particular name to settle in a certain locality, is given the title of \"first ancestor\". In many families there are more than one \"first ancestor\", the Tang family have several whom they venerate equally.\n\nFirst they have Tang Yue ($) their earliest known ancestor. A native of San Ye (†) now Honan province, (i) he was born in the second year of Hon Ping Tai (+) A.D. 2 and died 52 years later in the 1st year of Wing P'ing (†) of Tung Hon (**) dynasty. He was a very famous and high officer, and a personal friend of the first emperor of Tung Hon, Kwong Mo (†). He was only twenty-four years of age when Kwong Mo became emperor, but he was given the high office of \"Tai Sz To,\" (✯a✯) equivalent to Prime Minister (during Tung Hon dynasty), for having helped him to rid the country of the numerous bandits that infested it. After Kwong Mo died his son Ming Tai (8) gave him the honour of “Taai Foo (AM), the second highest honour it was possible to receive from the Emperor, at that time, and he was created \"Ko Mat Hau\" ( 4 ) which means Marquis of Ko Mat, now Kiaochow (*) in Shan Tung (R) province. After the death of Tang Yue his portrait was placed first among those of twenty-eight generals in one of the Emperor's palaces called Wan Toi (雲臺)\n\nTang Hon Fat, forty-seventh generation after Tang Yue, is also venerated by his descendants. It is believed by some, that he was the first of the Tang family to settle in Kam Tin. He was a government officer holding the post of \"Shing Mo Long” (**) and was a native of Paak Sha Ts'uen ( & ††) of Kat Shui ( #7†) district in the province of Kiangsi ( ¿1). According to one old family history he was visiting Kwangtung (*) and coming by chance", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206846, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 117\n\nfrom Kwantung province Wong Chi Tsoi (£*) of Tung Koon district was rewarded with this privilege.\n\nThe Lik Ying Tsaai had a large library which housed many thousands of books, and outside the North gate of the village Tang Foo built several hostels for the students to live in. He cultivated the surrounding fields, and the income derived from them was used for forming scholarships for poor students. Tang Foo lectured to the scholars himself sometimes, but he also paid learned men to teach regularly. In the 24th year of Ka Hing (✯✯) A.D. 1819 of Ts'ing (†) dynasty when \"The History of the San On district\" was revised the ruins of the school were still to be seen, but now there is no trace of it left.\n\nAccording to a copy of the family tree belonging to the Ping Shaan (1) branch of the Tang family, the original stone on Tang Foo's grave was replaced in the 45th year of Ka Tsing (†) A.D. 1566 of Ming dynasty, by a man named Tang Shui Faan (†4K) as it was broken and illegible. On the new stone it was said that the date of Tang Foo was not obtainable, but it stated that he lived during the Sung dynasty. In the 33rd year of Hong Hei () A.D. 1694, of Tsing dynasty another stone was erected, and it is this one, that gives the date of Tang Foo passing his Tsun-sz (+) examination to be the 2nd year of Sung Ning ($) of Sung dynasty A.D. 1103, but considering that his great grandson Tang Sin (#) (or Tang Yuen Leung, one of the \"five yuens”) is known to have been district officer of Kung Yuen (4) Kiangsi province in the 3rd year of Kin Yim (£ƒ) A.D. 1129 of Sung dynasty, it is probable that Tang Foo lived a good deal earlier. In fact in the 8th year of Shing Fa (1 ) A.D. 1472 of Ming dynasty the Tang family wrote in their family tree the suggestion that perhaps the 2nd year of Sung Ning () was miswritten for 2nd year of Hei Ning ( ) which would put the date of Tang Foo back to A.D. 1069, a far more possible date.\n\nThe system of district magistrates in the Sung dynasty was quite different to the system in the modern dynasty of Ts'ing (). When the \"Five Dynasties” Ng Toi (£†) A.D. 907-959 began China was in a state of rebellion and disunion. Large armies under their separate generals had to be sent to the various localities to keep order, but far from supporting the Emperor the generals turned the country they were sent to control, into feudatory states, Faan Chan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206850, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 121\n\nis called Lo Foo Ts'z T'ong (老虎祠堂), Tiger Hall. The floor of the cave is quite smooth with a lot of small stones almost like a mosaic. Though the actual site of the school is not known, old tiles have been found from time to time on the hillside, and one of these can be seen in a house called Cheung Ch'un Yuen (祥泉園) of Shui Tau (水頭) village. In the same house is a flower vase of interest that was dug up on Hong Kong island about 30 years before the British settled there.\n\nAs mentioned before, four of the \"five Yuens\" eventually left Kam Tin and founded branches of the Tang family elsewhere, and it has even been said that Yuen Leung, the ancestor of the Kam Tin branch, moved to Mok Ka Tung (莫家洞) near Shek Lung, but this removal is generally attributed to Yuen Leung's daughter-in-law, a princess of Sung dynasty whose story reads almost like a romance. She was a daughter of the Emperor Ko Tsung (高宗) of Sung Dynasty, who before becoming emperor of China was Prince Hong Wong (康王). The Tartars at that time were attacking the North of China, and in the 2nd year of Tsing Hong (靖康) A.D. 1127 they entered the Sung capital, captured the two emperors Fai Tsung (徽宗) and Yam Tsung (欽宗) together with both the mother and wife of Hong Wong, who was himself away in another part of the kingdom fighting the Tartars as he held the appointment of Tin Ha Ping Ma Tai Yuen Sui (天下兵馬大元帥), the commander-in-chief of all the emperor's forces. Hong Wong's little daughter was only ten years old and she was protected by her women servants who fled with her to the South. In the 3rd year of Kin Yim (建炎) A.D. 1129 they arrived in the Kiangsi province where Yuen Leung was district officer of Kung Yuen (贛縣) district. He was very zealous to help the Emperor and had collected together an army of soldiers, with the intention of marching North. Kiangsi was full of the Tartar forces, and the princess found herself surrounded by enemies. One day she saw the Sung flag over the encampment of Yuen Leung's army and she went to him for protection. She stayed with Yuen Leung, moving about with his soldiers, and eventually when he returned to Kam Tin he brought her back with him. He did not know who she was, as the servants had told him only that she was the daughter of a high official in the North. The princess found happiness and security in Kam Tin. She was like a daughter in Yuen Leung's house, helped with the household duties and was quite content. Eventually she revealed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207105, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "170\n\nSUNG HOK-PANG\n\nShui T'au village in the Shing Fa years of Ming dynasty, and at the same time, Tang Wan Kuk #Tang Shuk Lun and Tang Kwai Yin started the village of Shui Mei, while Tang Chung, Tang Shue and eight others formed the village Ying Lung Waai near Yuen Long Market. When these villages were built on the advice of “fung shui\" men a pagoda was also erected to the west of them, called Man Ch'eung Kok. In the 30th year of To Kwong, A.D. 1850, of Ts'ing dynasty the Tang family seemed to have reached the height of their prosperity. Many of them had passed the highest government examination and a census taken in that year shewed that there were more than eighteen hundred males living, belonging to the family. Not content, the elders consulted with ignorant \"fung shui\" men as to how to increase their numbers even more. They were advised to pull down the pagoda, to alter the course of the river, making three ponds, and to build a school that would hide part of the river from the view of the village. From that time the family decreased considerably, and many of them regretted having taken the advice of the \"fung shui\" men. In 1930, however, they repaired the banks of the river and built houses called Ch'eung Ch'un Lei near where the pagoda had stood, and since then the Kam T'in people declare that more male children have been born and family is once again on the increase.\n\n[5]\n\nDuring and since the Ming dynasty Kam T'in has been able to boast of many scholarly and notable sons. Tang T'ing Ching who passed the Kui-yan degree in the 7th year of Shing Fat of Ming dynasty, A.D. 1471, of Maan On was appointed to the office of Kau Yue district in Kiangsi province, promoted later to District Magistrate of T'ang Yuen Kwangsi. He was a great friend of Hau Kui, a well-known poet of the New Territories. His poems are included in an anthology named \"Ling Naam Chue Yuk\" and also in the Record book of San On and among them is a poem written as a farewell to Tang T'ing Ching when he left to take up his new official post. The oldest family tree book of the Tang family of Kam T'in in existence now was compiled by Tang T'ing Ching.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207765, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "138\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nThe first two of these had their own transport fleets, the NHA had a few worn-out trucks, while the mission hospitals were partially serviced by the International Relief Committee (IRC) which also had some worse-for-wear trucks.\n\nIt was decided that the best service the Unit could render was to take over responsibility for transport and distribution of medical supplies within China for the NHA and the IRC. The immediate task was transporting about 140 tons of medical supplies which had accumulated in Kunming to Kweiyang and Chungking. Thus the Unit became the major civilian medical and relief transport organization with a series of routes totalling about 6,000 km, and shown on the map in Fig. 1. For the next four years the pattern remained much the same; the supplies came by air over the \"Hump\" to Kunming where the Unit took delivery and transported them by road, rail and boat to all areas of China under the control of the Government in Chungking. It was not possible to take supplies to the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Border Region controlled by the Eighth Route Army or to the New Fourth Army areas. The first medical supplies reached Yenan in Feb, 1946 at the time of the Marshall negotiations when the writer arrived with 3 truck loads; an interesting trip but outside the scope of this paper.2\n\nTransport Routes and Operation\n\nThe tonnage of goods moved on the different routes (See Fig. 1) varied but throughout the 4 year period 1942-45, three routes carried the major portion. These were:\n\n1) Kutsing-Luhsien (✰★-✯⇓) 742 kilometres. This ran from the Kunming-Chanyi railhead 170 kilometres to the west of Kunming to Luhsien on the Yangtse Kiang.\n\n2) Kutsing to Kweiyang (-) 500 kilometres. This is the capital of Kweichow province and site of the IRC distribution operations, especially to Kwangsi, Kwangtung and Kiangsi.\n\n3) Kweiyang to Chungking (†-1A) 490 kilometres. Chungking was, of course, the war time capital of the Republic and is at the confluence of the Yangtse and Kialing Rivers.\n\nA diagram map and profile of the first route is given in Fig. 2. The other routes are included in Table III.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208157, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 196, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "180\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nA visit will be made by coach to five of the oldest graves belonging to the family and, in addition, to a school in Kat Hing Wai at Kam Tin to see some of its heirlooms.\n\nQuite a bit of walking is involved and lady members are advised to wear flat shoes for comfort and ease of movement over hill paths. The visit will start from the Tsuen Wan Ferry Pier at 11 a.m. Members are advised to catch the regular ferry from the Central Terminus, Hong Kong (35 minutes by ordinary ferry, 20 by hover ferry). Please check ferry times with HK Yaumatei Ferry Co. (Tel. 5-220393) and make your own arrangements. Otherwise, come by car and park locally, allowing plenty of time to find parking space (try the western end of Yeung Uk Road, in the area of the Yeung Uk Road Sports Ground, in the same road as the pier).\n\nMembers are advised to bring a picnic lunch. The visit should end between 5--6 p.m., back at the Tsuen Wan Ferry Pier.\n\nThe tour will be limited to two buses and members and their friends are invited on a first-come-first-served basis. Please telephone names to Mrs. Kam at 12-403396 (District Office, Tsuen Wan).\n\nProgramme notes will be available on the day.\n\nDAVID LIU and JAMES HAYES\n\nJoint Organizers\n\n29.11.76\n\nTHE TANG (4) CLAN IN THE NEW TERRITORIES AND ITS OLDEST GRAVES\n\nAccording to the genealogical record kept by the Tang clan at Kam Tin, it originated from a branch settled in Kut Shui County (*) of Kiangsi Province during the northern Sung period (960-1126).* \n\nIt all started when one of the ancestors by the name of TANG Fu-hip (###) passed through this part of Kwangtung on his way to his new official assignment as the magistrate of Yeung Chun County () after he had successfully passed the imperial examination and was awarded the chin-shih degree during the reign of Hsi Ning (1068-1077).\n\n* With the exception of \"Kiangsi” romanizations used in this Note are in Cantonese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208333, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "ALTAR IMAGES FROM HUNAN AND KIANGSI\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nA recent shipment of a score or so grimy and battered altar images were offered on sale at a curio shop in Hong Kong. With China endeavouring to obtain as much foreign currency as she can, the prices of images such as these have increased to some five times what was being asked two years ago. None of the images is perfect. Many bear signs of the ravages of time, with wormholes and limbs broken off. One or two have their original colours but all were covered in a thick, black greasy film acquired over unattended years on altars. The rarity of such images on the market and the poor state of condition they were in suggests that the Chinese are perhaps scraping the bottom of the barrel and that even fewer will emerge in future. One or two were immediately obviously from Hunan province with characteristics which are difficult to describe in words. Seven of them still had the bung in the centre of the back untouched, which is very unusual.\n\nIn some parts of China it was the custom when a deity was \"endowed with life\" at the ceremony at which it is placed on the altar, to put a few objects into a specially hollowed out cavity in the middle of the back and seal it with a tight fitting wooden bung. The contents vary but, in general terms, they symbolise the inner organs of a human. Sometimes they consist of cut-out paper or tin foil, sometimes of small tubes of lead attached to a tiny cotton sac, wrapped in multi-coloured cotton threads. Very frequently a live insect and one or two grains of rice or other seeds were also placed into the cavity, for the life to be transferred to the deity from the creature or seed. Occasionally prayers too were placed there, written on silk or rice paper and folded carefully, and the whole contents folded into a small piece of red paper. (Plate 1)\n\nInside the cavities of the seven images which still had their bungs in place were found short strips of rice paper bearing descriptions of where, when and why the image had been placed on the altar.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208334, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "42\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nIn addition there were scraps of cotton, threads, one or two grains of rice, a tiny sac of cotton cloth stuffed with more cotton and several beads and slivers of mica. There were also two dried sea-horses* in the image dedicated in 1871 though there were no signs of any other remains. The strips of paper are not all that usual and are rarely found in Southern Chinese images. Precis translations of the six strips of paper are included later in this note.\n\nThe papers show that five of the seven images were dedicated and placed on altars in the County of Wu Kang (A) in South East Hunan, one hundred miles due north of Kweilin and three hundred and seventy-five miles NNW of Hong Kong, near the Hunanese boundaries with its neighbouring provinces of Kwangsi and Kweichow. The west and south-west of Hunan were not easily accessible until the 1930's due to the dangerous rapids in the upper reaches of the plentiful rivers. Then a system of highways opened up the area. Prior to that, apart from the occasional traveller, traders and, of course, the petty officials sent to such \"punishment\" posts, all that was known of the area came from tales passed on from mouth to mouth. Wu Kang is in rising country, on the edge of an area marked on old maps as the lands of the Thai minority peoples, the Ko Lao (z) and another larger minority people, the Miao (δ). The other two images come from Chi An prefecture () in Kiangsi province, some two hundred and eighty miles due east of Wu Kang. Chi An, an old walled city and a major centre on the north-flowing Kan Chiang, had closer cultural links with central rather than south China.\n\nThe first image (Plate 2), from Wu Kang and dedicated in 1756, is a household deity to protect the home and family and to bring blessings. The slip of paper relates that Worshipper Fu Shih-hsiang, together with his three sons and others from his family, all of Hsin Wu Chang Village, Yen Shan, Lung Chu district of Wu Kang county in Pao Ching prefecture (now Shao Yang), Hunan, on the 4th day of the 7th moon of the 20th year of Ch'ien Lung (1756), offered sacrifices to the gods at the City God temple in Shih Pei.† He also reported to them in writing that he and his whole family\n\n* Seahorses, found as far inland, would have a rarity value, though they are commonly used by Chinese herbalists & pharmacists.\n\n† Chinese characters are to be found on the illustrations of the slips of paper.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208338, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "46\n\nKEITII STEVENS\n\nMu. The whole is best known as a Taoist Heaven (*). The temple at its peak bears the title of Fan Ch'ih Kung (£) \"The Palace of the Essence of Brahma\". The slip of paper in Tou Mu's back relates that Huang Wen-yuan, a sincere believer, born on the 27th day, 11th moon of the Year i wei (about December, 1835), residing south of Lu Ling City, Chi An Prefecture, Kiangsi Province, together with the whole of his family, on a lucky day of the 9th moon, of the Year keng wu during the Tung Ch'ih reign (about October, 1870), prayed before Tou Mu stating, \"I respectfully implore Most Reverend Tou Mu, a heavenly Goddess of Sacred Virtue, having the immense brilliance of T'ien Hou, generosity, the magic powers of suppressing demons and spirits, and the ability to produce amulets and prescriptions for saving people with serious afflictions, to effectively respond to my earnest prayers and wishes, and wield her supernatural powers to protect all the members of my family and to increase not only the number of children but also all kinds of happiness and prosperity\".\n\nOf the score or so images, only three deities are categorically identifiable, Kuan Ti, Kuan Yin, and Chao Kung-ming, the deities of loyalty, mercy and wealth respectively. Two of the images seem to be local Earth Gods (+) (Plate 8). They are of a style very commonly seen but with what are probably provincial characteristics. They are seated old men, clutching a fly whisk by the end of its handle allowing the handle itself to rest along the forearm and the whiskers to hang from about the elbow. They have a \"shoe\" of gold in their left hand, long white beards, white eyebrows and white hair under a green floppy form of skull cap with their hair drawn up into a bun through a hole in the top of it. They are wearing long robes bound by a red belt tied in a bow at the front, and black shoes. A female carved in the same pose, holding a fly whisk in the same manner, and dressed in a floral robe but without the “shoe\" of gold, has unbound feet, and hair, without a cap, drawn into two short pigtails. She may perhaps, be the consort of the Earth God.\n\nA final image, unidentified, has a spectacular face (Plate 9). He is an unidentified monk, seated cross-legged on a bench and with the ends of his robes hanging beneath him concealing the bench. He holds a fly whisk in his right hand in the same manner as the Earth God and in his left hand he holds a rosary. He has the face of an elderly man but with the characteristics more frequently", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208339, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "ALTER IMAGES FROM HUNAN AND KIANGSI \n\n47 \n\nidentified as those of the long-face northern Chinese, with narrow almost closed eyes, a furrowed brow and a black pointed beard resting on his upper chest. \n\nThe rest of the images, all with empty back cavities, consisted of one man similar to the first above, six women seated, dressed in robes, with their right hand carefully holding the edge of their robes and their left hand concealed, similar to the second of the six images described above, and one other Kuan Yin with an empty cavity in her back.\" \n\nOne slip only of the seven suggests that the Yin family placed an image on a family altar of a standardised, impersonal image of a female named Jen (perhaps the deceased wife of Mr. Yin). Perhaps it was the practice to place such standardised images of deceased relatives on family altars in Hunan? Cantonese god carvers in Kowloon were all quite positive that such a custom is not observed in Hong Kong, nor in their memory was it performed in Kwang-tung province. Several said that they understood that the Fukienese, and in particular the people from around Amoy, customarily placed stylised ancestral figures of old men and women on personal altars but never on temple altars. They also said that there is the well-known custom of the Boat People of South China, of placing standardised images of all deceased members of the family on the family altar irrespective of the age at death. (See my article on \"Soul images and Gods of the Boat People\" in Arts of Asia, volume 7, Number 6, Nov/Dec 1977). \n\nRegrettably, Hunan was ill-served by foreign travellers and writers, particularly about its temples and gods, and so no collateral information would seem to be available. A photograph taken in the sixties in the entrance hall to Mao's birthplace near Chang-sha in Hunan province, shows the family altar, with Chao Kung-ming the wealth God and Kuan Yin both easily identifiable, the remainder being indistinguishable. None, however, look like the images described above. \n\nAn example of the Fukienese custom is the lady, Madam Hsieh (###), from a family household shrine in Singapore. The image, carved in 1931, some six inches high (see Plate 10) is again a standard, impersonal likeness of an elderly dowager. She is recognisable as an ancestral image by the white duck(?) under each of her bound feet. Otherwise, she is dressed in elaborate robes,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209664, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 321, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n299\n\nexamples from field work, I began to look in books on China for examples from other places. It then became obvious that the use of firecrackers in the settlement of disputes was widespread. Some examples from my reading may be of interest to readers, and I shall briefly refer to them here.\n\nE. T. Williams mentioned their place in the settlement of disputes in his general work on China China Yesterday and Today (New York, Thomas Y. Crowell 1923), 128:\n\nThe village elders use their good offices to reconcile the disputants and earn for themselves the reward of the peace-makers. They hear the complaint and the defense, the rejoinder and the sur-rejoinder. They find a middle ground on which the parties to the quarrel may meet, The law-suit is avoided: the ill-feeling is removed, the principals and their relatives are reconciled, and the whole village participates in the feast with which the event is celebrated. Of the complainant is decorated with red hangings, and the neighbor against whom complaint was made brings great bunches of fire-crackers attached to a pole and sets them off in the gateway. Thus full atonement is made for the alleged injury or affront and everybody is happy.\n\nThe house\n\nexcept, as I have said above, the losing party! And forty years before Williams' book was published, the prefect of Canton, intervening in a three-cornered dispute between merchants, scholars and his subordinate officials, playing the role of mediator, \"soothed the anger of the scholars with fireworks, i.e. shooting firecrackers, a customary way of giving loud apology to a party whose sentiments or honor were wronged\". This is taken from Kung-chuan Hsiao Compromise in Imperial China, Occasional Papers on China No. 6 (Seattle, School of International Studies, University of Washington, 1979), p. 45, citing the account given by Herbert A. Giles, China and the Chinese (New York, 1902).\n\nChang Fu-liang, a member of a rural reconstruction programme in Kiangsi province in the 1930s, found that the settlement of disputes was sometimes necessary before a start could be made to the work. He describes one situation as follows:-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211656, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "46\n\noffered entertainments similar to those offered to deified humans such as opera, banquets and regular meals with tea and wine. Offerings to Pestilence Wang Yeh usually consist of incense, oil, tea, wine, cakes, cooked rice, vegetables and fruit and never meat, poultry or fish. In a number of temples images of the Pestilence Wang Yeh have 'hell money' placed under them, though this is possibly due to the devotees' desire to please and appease every god in the temple irrespective of their role.\n\nSeances are held in some Pestilence Wang Yeh temples with a medium communing with the Wang Yeh himself to discover the cause of a specific disease; that is, what the actual demonic attack consists of, so that the devotee may take all the necessary precautions.\n\nSome spirit mediums in Pestilence Wang Yeh temples perform their rituals and exorcisms under the watchful eye of the image or images of Wang Yeh brought to the temples by devotees from their own home altars.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh have also been seen in temples in Kiangsi province bordering northern Fukien, though no reference to them in other areas adjacent to Fukien province has been noted in native or foreign travel or religious books.\n\nThe dates of Pestilence Wang Yeh festivals vary from temple to temple though a popular date is the 26th of the fourth lunar month; another is the 15th of the eighth lunar month. Each year during the fifth lunar month festival a 'plague boat' (Wang Ch'uan) made of paper or, in large communities, of wood, is laden with captured demonic spirits (the cause of disease) and pushed out to sea or set afire on the shore. This is a three-day event during which the Wang Yeh are entertained and feasted before the boats are despatched in flames together with their passengers, the demons. In practice images of the Wang Yeh and their wooden tablets remain in the temple and nowadays only paper tablets bearing the name of the Wang Yehs are despatched with the demons.\n\nIt has been the practice for a new small shrine to be set up in honour of the Wang Yeh wherever the boat drifts ashore. The Wang Yeh boat festival is rarely seen nowadays in Taiwan; it was popular elsewhere until fairly recently, for example it was seen in Malacca until the mid-thirties. In Malacca it was referred to as the Wang Kang and was held for the five days from the 21st of the tenth lunar month every", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212206, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "125\n\nThe journey takes the whole day. It was almost dark when I got off and walked across the long new road bridge, erected over the great Kan river which forms the main artery down the centre of Kiangsi province, as the Siang river does in Hunan. And as in Hunan the Siang river passes through the Tung Ting lake, one of the natural overflow reservoirs into which the surplus waters of the Yangtze pour during the summer freshets, so in Kiangsi the Kan river passes through the Poyang lake before reaching the Yangtze some miles below Kiu Kiang. Nanchang stands where the Kan river enters the lake. Like Kweilin it is not a treaty port. Apart from missionaries no foreigners were allowed to live here, but they could transact business and pay visits. In the old days owing to the discomfort of the railway we generally preferred to come by houseboat through the lake; but now the motor car had begun to replace all that, though the process was hindered by the scarcity of petrol caused by the war.\n\nThe population of Nanchang could not be far short of a million. The narrow streets were giving way to wide new thoroughfares on which the city bus services operated. Though many in China could afford motor cars, away from the treaty ports their use was not common, because only too often, unless the owner could arrange through his friends for protection, the car would be commandeered for military business claimed to be urgent. It is this fear of commandeering that has restricted the distribution of the private car and the private wireless set in China.\n\nThe very shops were changing their nature. The old shops, in their narrow alleys, would show a front open to the cust, of which there was plenty, and receive such meagre light as the proximity of the houses on either side of the strect admitted. The back of the shop would be dark. Perhaps, a small kerosene lamp stood on a desk to light up the accountant's daybook. Across the front and down part of one side, along the passage to the back, an open counter awaited the display of such goods as the customer might require. These would be drawn from the shelves at the back by one of the numerous assistants, mostly relations of the owner, who would be standing behind, leaning their elbows on the counter, and killing much time by making comment on the people passing in the street. The intending purchaser would examine the article exposed for his inspection and point out its numerous defects, imagined or real, while the assistant would take the opposite view and extol its merits. There", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212380, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 322, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "299\n\nreligious practice apart, that is, from the ethnically different Boat People of the South China coast. I also explained that many of the spirit images I had obtained came from Shaoyang county in Hunan province and from the township of Wu Kang in particular. These locations could be pinpointed with accuracy from the slips of paper concealed in the cavities in the backs of the images which also gave dates and other details. The images housed, and in a few cases outwardly represented, as portrait images, the souls of dead individuals. The subject of spirit images, at that time, did not appear to have been described elsewhere and it was left in the air whether this custom was unique to Hunan and the western part of Kiangsi which joins Hunan province, awaiting further evidence.\n\nThis does not seem to have been forthcoming. However, one image with the cavity in its back still sealed, obtained very recently [November 1992] in Yangshuo, just south of Kueilin, from a stall packed with such images (the majority of which had the cavities in their backs open and empty) revealed that the image, said by locals to have been from Kueilin city itself, was also from Wu Kang. It had been carved and dedicated to a Mrs Ch'en in the thirteenth year of Tao Kuang (AD 1834), and whilst this does not answer the question whether the custom of having carved images of soul figures extended beyond Hunan and western Kiangsi, the large number of such images still available on stalls in China does highlight the popularity and extent of the custom within that limited area of China.\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nT'I-SHEN\n\n替身\n\nA SUBSTITUTE FOR A PERSON\n\nSome years ago a number of popular images commonly seen in a god carver's shop in Singapore were described by the carver as 'Half spirit and half demon', pan-shen pan-kuei.' They were all remarkably similar with only minor differentiating features though all had a surname on the back. The majority were female and were easily identifiable by the birds, one under each foot. The males were less easily identifiable though the surname on the reverse was the clue. Once or twice similar images were noted on altars in public temples", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212658, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 212, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "193\n\nto and honouring the memory of Wang Te-lu, an Imperial fleet commander who helped clear the Straits of Formosa of pirates during the early years of the nineteenth century. The Wang Clan Temple in T'ai-pao village in Chia I county in central Taiwan was an elegant building first built during the late 19th century by the proud clan whose surname Wang Te-lu bore. It was rebuilt in 1979, this time a modern metal frame construction retaining the comparatively small single hall in which there is but one altar on which stands one large multi-ancestor tablet and three ancestral tablets. The flanking walls bear texts, with Wang Te-lu referred to in a number of the captions as Wang Ta-jen, i.e. His Excellency Wang, and paintings of Wang Te-lu stage left and of his primary wife stage right.\n\nAlthough we know little about Wang's early life apart from what has been retrieved from local folk memory which, as with all family recollections, is highly subjective and probably exaggerated out of all reality, we do have official records of the highlight of his life. This \"five minutes of glory\", depicted in a painting hanging in his Memorial Chapel illustrating the incident, was his victory over pirates who had been causing immense and terrible problems up and down the coasts of the southern provinces of Chekiang, Fukien and Kuangtung since the late 1790s. One pirate fleet in particular had sailed the Fukien coast under its dreaded Fukienese leader, Ts'ai Ch'ien. The Chinese Imperial naval commander, Li Ch'ang-keng, commanding the joint fleets of Fukien and Chekiang province, determined to suppress them, successfully defeated the pirates on a number of occasions but was killed in action in 1808, following which his two subordinate admirals, of whom Wang was one, were entrusted with continuing the task. Wang, in charge of the Imperial Fukien fleet, together with the Chekiang fleet under Admiral Ch'iu, fought the major battle in September 1808 near the Tai-chou islands off the Chekiang coast. The pirate fleet was destroyed with Ts'ai Ch'ien going down with his ship.\n\nWang was born and named Te-lu, literally meaning \"To become prosperous and happy\", in 1771, the thirty-fifth year of the emperor Ch'ing Ch'ien Lung, in Kiangsi's provincial city of Nanch'ang, and in later years acquired the courtesy name of Pai-ch'u, literally \"All Honours are concentrated within Him\"; and the literary name, Yü-feng, literally meaning \"The Jade Peak\". He died at the age of 71 in 1842 on the Pescadores, an archipelago in the middle of the Straits of Formosa, and having been borne in honour back to Taiwan, was buried in Hsin-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212771, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "65\n\n1900 ca 1900\n\n1901 December\n\n1904\n\n1905 Jan/Jun\n\n1907\n\nca 1910/1911\n\n1914 November\n\nca 1914/1915\n\n1914-1919\n\n11 Dec 1919\n\nClaims to have volunteered for service in Peking [Boxer troubles]\n\nMesny visited Nan-chang in Kiangsi where he met Hsiung Shih-fu, a young reformer\n\nInterviewed Viceroy Liu K'un-yı în Nanking.\n\nPublished Mesny's Chinese and English Almannac\n\nPublication of his final volume of his Chinese Miscellany\n\nMost Excellent High Priest in the Keystone Royal Arch Chapter, in Shanghai\n\nHis wife, Han, obtained a legal separation in Shanghai\n\nMesny moved to Hankow\n\nClaims to have passed a medical and then offered his services to the Crown [World War 1]\n\nEmployed by Messrs. Reiss and Co. in Hankow\n\nDied in rue de Paris in Hankow\n\nAppendix C\n\nThe Chinese Imperial Forces\n\nMesny's Involvment in the Suppression of the Miao Revolt\n\nThe First Campaign by Imperial Troops\n\nin Kueichou Province\n\n1868-1871\n\nand\n\nOrder of Battle of the Szechuan Force\n\nChinese Imperial Forces, with the aid of a number of foreigners and foreign arms, had by 1864 succeeded in suppressing the Taiping rebellion against the dynasty. They then turned to liquidating the other rebellions seething in various parts of China which included the Nien movement in northern China, the Moslem minority revolt in Yunnan province, another major Moslem uprising in the North-west, and finally the Miao aboriginal tribes which had revolted in Kueichou province.\n\nThe Miao, or Miao-tzu as Mesny refers to them, rose against the Ch'ing dynasty Manchu rulers of China in 1854 after discontent reached boiling point due not only to Chinese settlers colonising the best lands in the low lying areas of the province of Kueichou, but also to the exploitation of the Miao by Chinese officials and merchants. According to Mesny the passionate and untamed Miao gradually took back almost the whole province apart from the capital, Kuei-yang Fu, and the city", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213446, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 42, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "9\n\nBy their differences in dwellings and occupations, already observed, these four communities can be grouped into land-dwellers and sea-dwellers, the Cantonese and Hakka being the former and the Tanka and Hoklo the latter.\n\n43\n\nThe Cantonese, or Punti as they are sometimes called, had their origins in North China and speak a Chinese dialect of the western section of the Yueh language which evidences their claim to be of pure Chinese stock. There is no record of their arriving in the province of Kwangtung, which they colonised, earlier than the Sung Dynasty (960-1278 A.D.). In the van were a clan surnamed Tang who settled in the Yuen Long district of the New Territories late in the 11th century. This clan became the largest landowners with their main centres at Kam T'in, P'ing Shan, Lung Yeuk Tau and Ha Tsuen. They exercised \"a kind of feudal power, and the tradition they had brought with them was so strong that they not only became the founders of the Cantonese settlement but to this day exert a great influence in affairs. The Cantonese occupy most of the two principal plains in the northwest sector of the New Territories, and own a good deal of the best valley land in various other areas. Villages in the Tung Chung and Shek Pik valleys, on Lantau Island, date back to the early Yuan dynasty in the late thirteenth century. The livelihood of the Cantonese is dependent mainly on the cultivation of rice.\n\nThe Hakka migrated originally also from North China and, moving gradually southwards through Fukien and Kiangsi in the 10th century, reached Kwangtung Province during the latter years of the Southern Sung Dynasty. They speak two dialects or sub-dialects of the eastern section of the same Yueh language that the Cantonese speak. Arriving after the Cantonese, the Hakka settled usually upstream of them, that is, on the poorer ground. They have, however, steadily over the centuries encroached on the land first occupied by the Cantonese. For example, after the Manchus in the 17th century had evacuated the entire population of the China Coast inland to guard against the fleet of the Ming Dynasty based on Formosa, the Hakka apparently took the opportunity of resettling in the abandoned coastal area. Again, Hong Kong island is said to have been originally occupied by the Tang clan but the British in the 19th century found it almost entirely inhabited by Hakka. A third example of Hakka encroachment is said to be Lantau Island which in recent times was depopulated by...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213713, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 66, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "37\n\nand Hong Kong) where males found resident in the New Territories were born.\" Females are recorded in addition as born at Lung Chuen, Lo Ting, Ko Chau, and Lei Chau, but in each case only in ones and twos.\n\nIt will be seen that the world of the New Territories villager was effectively bounded by the coastal strip, and the central, Delta, area of Kwangtung Province. The Islands were in contact with other ports from Chiu Chau to Lim Chau, but not much further. Neither the 1911 nor the 1921 Censuses refers to anyone born in Fukien, and there is only a single reference in 1921 to a man born in Vietnam. The coastal trade must have been essentially kept within the bounds of the province, although oral evidence mentions also traders from the very southernmost part of Fukien.\n\nAt the same time, contact seems to have been close and easy with the Pearl River Delta area within 100 miles of the New Territories, but beyond 100 miles contacts were slight. Only one man is recorded from Ho Yuen, Ying Tak, and Yeung Kong. The three recorded in 1911 from Kwangsi fall into the same pattern, as also the single male recorded from Kiangsi in both Censuses. Above 100 miles from the New Territories, the only place with which the New Territories villagers were in significant contact was the Ka Ying area in the upper Han River valley, where the stonecutters and itinerant weavers came from, although oral evidence suggests that the villagers knew the name of the area, but not much more.\n\nIt will be clear from Table 13 that the New Territories was in particularly close contact with a zone no more than about 50 miles wide, i.e., the districts of Kwai Shin (Wai Chau), San On (Po On), Tung Kun, Nam Hoi and Pun Yue (the Canton City and suburban districts), Heung Shan (Chung Shan), Shun Tak, and San Wui (Kongmoon). The villagers' contacts with Central and North China was almost non-existent.\n\nMany villagers emigrated for part of their life, but almost always without their families, and the contacts of the New Territories villagers with the wider world outside China is, as a consequence, understated in Table 13. The 1911 Census, however, mentions males born in Honolulu, the Philippines, and Malaya, and the 1921 Census adds individuals born in Japan, Italy, and USA. Probably, by 1911, the New Territories villager was more in contact", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214018, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "52 \n\ndedicated to the 3rd century BC hero, Li Mu? Peasant memories have so frequently proved to have been selective and extremely partial to local heroes and as the famous battle fought by Yang Yeh in northern Shansi took place quite close to the site of the temple it would be understandable for them to assume rightly or wrongly that the temple had been dedicated to his son in those distant days before the temple was destroyed. And here is another problem. No one nowadays knew when the temple had been demolished, the best bet would seem to be during the Japanese campaigns of the 1930s.\n\nNOTES\n\n'The Khitan [in Chinese Ch'i-tan] were Tatars who adopted the Chinese name Liao for their dynasty, and were hunters from approximately the area now known as Inner Mongolia\n\n4\n\n༣\n\n\"General\" in Chinese used to be a generic term for the leader of an independent body of soldiers and was even used for leaders of village militia groups as small as a score or so\n\nHe was also known as P'an Hung and referred to in the novel as the Sung Imperial adviser Hung-yang Tung At the Hung-yang cave)\n\nThe Eldest Son was Yang Yuan-ping, the Second Son, Yang Yen-ling, and the Third, Yang Yen-kuang.\n\n*This cult is in no way connected with Yang Hou, whose images have been noted in eight temples in Hong Kong and Macau\n\n7\n\nA small temple in Taipei is dedicated to the Four Ambassadors [who crossed to Taiwan] from the Chin Lake in Ch'uanchou, and despite the main deities within all being pestilence Wang-yeh, and acknowledged as such by the temple keeper, they were also identified as four of the sons of Yang Yeh. The images were well-nigh impossible to discern with any clarity as the protective plate glass was extremely grimy.\n\n8 Werner also noted that Ch'an Shih-kung was a popular deity in Kiangsi province whose aid was sought by peasants for rain during prolonged drought. He added that pictures of the deity in monasteries showed him with a vermilion mark on his forehead and with a tiger crouched at his feet. Legend explained that a tiger which had menaced travellers had been ordered by Ch'an Shih-kung to desist, and it had followed him like a dog thereafter. It would seem that the deity noted by Werner was not in any way connected with Yang Wu Lang.\n\n9 In a small Singapore temple the following title was inscribed into a multi-deity tablet, even though no images of the Yang clan were present: Hsien-feng Yang Chiang-chun Chi-chiao Wang-yeh [The Fleet of Foot Vanguard General].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214150, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 8, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT ........................................................................................................................ xii\n\nFRIENDS OF THE RAS (UK) REPORT.................... xxvi\n\nAUDITOR'S REPORT ........................................................................................................................ xxviii\n\nHON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT ............................................................................................................. xxxv\n\nARTICLES\n\nDan Waters - Laughter Across the Great Wall: A Comparison of Chinese and Western Humour ........ 1\n\nKeith Stevens - Images of Sinicised Vedic Deities on Chinese Altars ................................................ 51\n\nRichard J. Garrett - Weapons of the China Wars ............................................................................... 107\n\nKeith Stevens - Naturalist, Author, Artist, Explorer and Editor, and Almost Forgotten President: Arthur de Carle Sowerby, 1885 - 1954, President of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1935 - 1940 ............ 121\n\nKeith Stevens and Jennifer Welch - Xu, the Taoist Perfected Lord Xu Zhenjun, the Protective Deity of Jiangsi Province........... 137\n\nGillian Bickley - Plum Puddings and Sharp Boys, \"One Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin\": An Analysis of the China Coverage in the Illustrated London News, 5 January to 23 September, 1861 ........ 147\n\nKeith Stevens - The Deification of Heroes Following the Struggle by the Vassal State of Chou to Overthrow the Shang Dynasty...... 173\n\nKeith Stevens - Temples Arise from the Ashes of Revolution ........................................................... 187\n\nvii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214324, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "146\n\n主福天普\n\nThe main altar in the cult centre of Xu Zhenjun at Xi Shan, near Nanchang in Jiangsi Province. Xu is portrayed as a tall gilded image and a modern, smaller portable image in modern paint", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214367, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 225, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "191\n\nindustry. It was common, so it claimed, for construction teams to hold Taoist rituals, including the sacrifice of oxen before work began.*\n\nOn the other side of the coin, according to the Bureau of Religious Affairs, about 200 Taoist temples have been re-opened to the public in China since the 1980s and seven Taoist provincial associations have been established. One of these temples is the former Taoist Cheng-i sect centre, the Heavenly Master Sect temple [T'ien-shih Miao] on Dragon and Tiger Mountain, Lung-hu Shan, in Kiangsi province. It was burned down in 1945 and work on rebuilding it did not begin until 1983. This consisted of the renovation of the main hall and the re-sculpturing of the images of the San Ch'ing, the Three Pure Ones, and fourteen other clay statues. Other sites nearby have also been renovated, including the Shang Ch'ing Palace, where the Immortals lived, and the Lien-tan Ch'ih, the Furnace [where pills of immortality were made]. It is interesting to read that both local and central authorities donated more than half a million yuan towards the project.\n\nAbout the same time as the iconoclastic campaign began, a ban was also imposed in Tsingtao, the port in southern Shantung, on the manufacture, sale and burning of funeral objects in a bid to curb a resurgence in superstition.\n\n...\n\nDespite all of these reports of the destruction of illegal temples and the crackdown on superstition, my daughter and I during the years 1995-1997 have visited a number of temples both urban and rural in remote areas of China as well as in cities and towns which, without doubt, fall under the category of superstitious religious establishments. We have not only been guided to several such temples by policemen but also in one instance we found the local party cadre actually lived with his mother inside a small popular religion temple. The only instance where a member of a temple staff had reason to explain that an activity was banned because it was superstition happened in the suburbs of Shanghai. When we asked why there were no oracular blocks on the altar with which to obtain the deity's answers to questions posed by devotees, we were told by the temple guardian that this particular practice was superstition and not permitted, whereas other routine rituals seen in temples in Hong Kong and Taiwan were. A Chinese scholar recently explained that in his view illegal temples are the structures built without permission because local State authorities have not had the quid pro quo erection of a village school, crèche or health centre paid for by the villagers with the same sum funded for the project as\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]