[ { "id": 204253, "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-1961", "page_number": 21, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n18\n\nBIRDS OF HONG KONG\n\nCAPTAIN A. M. MACFARLANE, R.A.\n\nBased on a lecture delivered on September 22, 1960,\n\nThe birds of Hong Kong are notable for their variety. Over 330 different kinds of birds have been recorded here since 1860, and the list covers a wide range of types, with very few families found in China left unrepresented. I propose to cover the more common species, both residents and visitors, and to touch on a few of the rarities besides.\n\nI would normally hesitate to point out to residents of the Colony the geography of their surroundings, but a few features are worth remembering from a bird-watcher's point of view. First, Hong Kong is just inside the tropics, and therefore lies at the southern breeding limit of some of the typically northern birds such as the Black-capped Kingfisher, and at the northern breeding limit of some of the typically tropical or sub-tropical birds, such as the sunbirds and flowerpeckers. Secondly, the year is divided into quite definite seasons, some much longer than others, and so we get summer visitors who breed here, such as the Black-naped Oriole and Hair-crested Drongo; winter visitors such as certain ducks and many species of hawks and thrushes; and of course, passage migrants that pass through the Colony, sometimes in immense numbers, in spring and autumn to and from their breeding grounds in the far north. Examples of the more noticeable of these migrants are the waders, the swifts and the flycatchers. Thirdly, the Colony has a wide range of bird country within its small limits, from the top of Tai Mo Shan, over three thousand feet high, down through the wooded valleys such as the Lam Tsuen valley and the Tai Po Kau Forestry Reserve, across the open paddy-fields and marshes bordering Deep Bay to the rocky coasts and open sea off Hong Kong Island and Lantau. Therefore a bird-watcher can select different areas and hope to see different birds accordingly. Lastly, to the regret of all but bird-watchers, Hong Kong is subject to occasional fierce storms and even typhoons. If these last occur, then it is worth every effort to go out and brave the storm, for unusual birds are blown in, especially of marsh and coastal species.\n\nDuring the last few years, members of the Hong Kong Bird-Watching Society have found that just over 60 species nest regularly in the Colony. Despite the apparent scarcity of birds in the summer months, this number compares quite favourably with an area of English coastline of the same size. Although", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204481, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "102\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nthere are sometimes several. As a general rule they are small buildings, but the major clans have constructed large high spacious buildings with several courtyards and side rooms. Among the largest in the New Territories are the ancestral temples of branches of the TANG clan at Ping Shan and Ha Tsuen near Yuen Long. These are fine and impressive buildings but are not, unfortunately, kept in good repair. Much of the opposition to the British troops in 1898 was planned in the ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen. Beside the Ping Shan hall there is a school/library building, now used as a private residence.\n\n53 The reason is always said to be lack of funds though I suspect a lack of leadership is also a prime factor. The clan usually waits until something is seriously wrong, by which time it is often too late; a storm completes the ruination. There seems to be some truth in this as I have found newly built ancestral halls in several villages, e.g. the CHEUNG ancestral hall at Lo Wai, Pui O which was rebuilt in 1960 on a new site, the old one having been in ruins for twenty years.\n\n54 Clan worship at the graves still goes on, but is much more informal than in 1898. Mr. TANG Kiu-fong of Fui Sha Wai, a retired schoolmaster, previously quoted, who was born in 1894, tells me that when he was a boy the ceremony was taken very seriously. Everyone wore the long robe, elders were carried to the graves in sedan chairs, and male members of the clan were drawn up in ranks by generations and worshipped in strict seniority, under the direction of a master of ceremonies.\n\n55 These ancestral obligations often imposed considerable inconvenience and up to several days' travel for the whole family. Mr. CHEUNG Yau of Tai Ping village, North Lamma, (b. 1883) tells me that his grandfather settled on Lamma Island from his native village of Wai Tau in the Lam Tsuen valley in the present Tai Po district. Ever since he can remember, and until old age interfered with visits a few years ago, he has gone back to his ancestral village at least three times a year, as dictated by custom. For the first twenty-five years there was no railway and his family used to go by junk to Kowloon and walk the rest of the way, children included. Others went further afield. Mr. LAM Shue Chun, Chairman of the Peng Chau Rural Committee, told me that his family went regularly to their ancestral village of Nam Leng Wai in Po On, north of the border, and were interrupted in their journeys first by the Japanese and latterly by the Communists. He has been twice since 1942 and an uncle has been visiting fairly regularly up to last year. The family travelled to Kowloon by junk, then used the railway and had a long walk from Sham Chon Market. Sometimes there was no need to go from home as contact had been lost with the ancestral village which was too far away.\n\n56 They were full at any time. There is an interesting count of travel on the Colony's border roads and the Shum Chun ferries taken 11th and 12th December 1905 in Enclosure E to Despatch No. 59 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway already quoted. The first was a market day, when the count of persons, with and without goods, roughly doubled the figures for the second, or ordinary day. On the two main ferries, for instance, the count on December 11 was with goods 1126, without goods 1379 and on the Shum Chun-Sha Tau Kok road 521 and 1302. On the day following the figures were 468 and 1124, and 158 and 550 respectively. At New Year and the two grave festivals the number must have been very much increased.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204761, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE\n\n53\n\nwhere the terraces are constructed running down a spur from the top, whereas tin denotes valley land which is terraced from a water-course upwards and stops at the toe of the hill around which flows the highest of the irrigation channels. A study can be made in the Lam Tsuen valley and in Pat Heung of the two systems of terrace; and one is often corrected by the locals if describing che as tin, or tin as che, though both are terraced and irrigated land. Whether this truly represents a new meaning given to an old word, or whether the Chinese reference books are wrong in describing che as dry cultivation, is another of the gaps in my puzzle which I hope can be authoritatively filled. Other indicator words which appear to be non-Chinese, though I cannot identify them as Yao, are quoted in my introduction to Mr. Tregear's Gazetteer, already quoted. The commonest among them are chun, kau, lek, pok, ting, to, run, tung, wat and yuen. In a paper presented at the Jubilee Congress of Hong Kong University I suggested that wongchuk and wongmai in local place names stood for left and right respectively. Another interesting specimen is the raised valley Wat Lo Fu northeast of Silvermine Bay, which preserves the original order (attribute after noun) of words in most of the non-Han languages of south-western China.\n\nRegarding the other tribe which is described as inhabiting our hills, the Shan Lao, I have not been able to obtain any distinctive marks of identification. However one easily observed feature of our hills, about which most of the present villagers disclaim all knowledge, is the system of low walls made of graded uncut stones enclosing rectangular areas of hillside which are either not terraced or only roughly terraced, with terraces at an angle; and since those of my acquaintance who have worked and lived among the Yao people say they have seen nothing of the kind in the Yao system of cultivation, it may well be that these old stone walls are a \"trade mark” of the Shan Lao people. If so, then the same people must also be responsible for a number of irrigation works, of which the two most conspicuous are the one that begins near Hau Tong and flows about half a mile, partly underground, to one of these walled enclosures about the village of Ko Tong on the west of Long Harbour; and another on the northwest coast of Lantao, part of which, owing to the tilt...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204772, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "64 \n\nK. M. A. BARNETT \n\nNg \n\n103 Ngraahcrinn-chynn, \n\n104 Ngrhtrung-shaann, \n\nN. L. \n\n105 Ngrr-droi, £1 (+908—+959, with local variations). \n\n0 \n\n106 Obliterated villages:- Nai Tong Kok,101 Pak Hok Tuns and the original Tai Pak,35 some way from the present site. \n\nP \n\n107 Phuunniryh, #5. \n\n108 Preangzhaw, , an island five miles west of the western tip of Hong Kong Island. \n\n109 Preangzhaw, H, an island in the north-eastern part of Mirs Bay,41 \n\n110 Pre-Chinese languages: I should exempt from this stricture Professor Princeton S. Hsu,23 whose books, \"History of the People of South China”72 and \"A Study of the Thais, Chuangs and the Cantonese People\"133 are of great interest and should be read by anyone anxious to learn more in this field. But I think he goes too far in suggesting a Malay origin for the Tanka-or is it a Tanka origin for the Malays? \n\n111 Prengshaann, Ħ4. \n\n112 Pruunn-gwuur, 1. \n\nR \n\n113 River Capture. The break-through of the Kwun Yam Ho62 from the Lam Tsuen74 valley to Taipo:33 formerly it flowed through Fanling48 and Sheung Shui130 into Deep Bay;152 and that of the two streams which now flow into the sea at Sham Tseng,119 the headwaters of which used to flow through Tin Fu Tsai137 into Tai Lam.38 \n\n$ \n\nSei-braak, see 35, \n\n114 Shaahtraw-gok, YA★ · \n\n115 Shaahtrinn, 3⁄4w. \n\n+ \n\n116 Shaahtrinn-xoe, , still better known to the local people as Lik Yuen Hoi. \n\nShaamm-braak, E★ see 35, \n\n117 shaann-ghoh, Hakka saan-go, L. \n\n118 Shaannloo, \n\n#. \n\n119 Shamm-zearng, ##. \n\n+ \n\n120 Shamm-zeon, . The second word means an artificial channel with earth banks and suggests that the present river was cut to drain the swamps to the east and south-east of the present town. \n\n121 Shann Ngrrdroi-sir, ĦARK - \n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204790, "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": 93, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "PENG CHAU\n\n81\n\nThe first ancestor came from Po Kat in Po On, then San On, district. He settled not far from the anchorage and the shops nearby, and the family flourished there for several generations, farming most of the cultivable land and planting an extensive forestry lot.29 But the position had changed for the worse by 1899. At the land settlement which followed the British lease, though the LUIs were credited with owning house land, four and a half acres of paddy fields, and nine and a half acres of dry cultivation and vegetable land on Peng Chau, all except their houses were mortgaged to different persons without hope of return.30 When my informant was a boy, the LUI houses were in a broken-down condition. They also owned a lot of land on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau, but much of this too was mortgaged by the end of the century.31\n\nThe CHUNG family are said to have been the next arrivals. According to old Mr. CHUNG, his great-grandfather, who was the family's first ancestor to live on the island, came together with his son, a boy of ten. Consultation of the grave tablet, which is dated 1834,32 shows that he probably arrived in Peng Chau in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, not long after the LUIs. He came from his parent village of Tin Liu Ha in the Lam Tsuen Valley near Tai Po in the present New Territories. In 1899, the family still owned very little land of its own on Peng Chau, having, besides houses, only one-third of an acre of dry cultivation, but they held the mortgages of nearly nine acres of the LUI land, including most of their paddy fields.33 The family farmed their own and the mortgaged land, but, as I have said above, fishing was their chief concern about ten years before the British lease, another seeming \"irregularity\" which warns against the assumption that our local communities have separate characteristics and perform distinct functions which do not overlap. It was very likely Mr. CHUNG's grandfather's success at sea which enabled him to loan money to the LUI family and so gradually obtain their land; and the lack of land which made this family concentrate on the sea in the first place.\n\nAnother family of Hakka settlers are the LAM ✯ clan who came in the mid-nineteenth century. According to family tradition, three brothers who were operating a pawn-shop in Shum Chun Market were \"squeezed\" by yamen runners when a murder...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205077, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "28\n\nHUGH D. R. BAKER\n\npoint in history at which the clans arrived, and with their subsequent development. Grant gives some maps plotting the regions of land of various qualities, dividing the land into categories according to the number of catties of paddy per dau chung per crop it can produce.38 Best quality land produces 300 catties and upwards per dau chung, and then he grades the qualities down in units of 50 to 150 catties per dau chung, the lowest category of production worth his recording.\n\nThe region of the New Territories which has the largest area of double-cropping land is the Kam Tin Valley, settled largely by the earliest comers to the district—the Tangs. The land is not all of the best quality, about two-thirds falling into the category of moderate productivity (200–250 catties per dau chung),40 but for sheer size, with good water supply, it is the best region of the New Territories. In the early thirteenth century the lineage segmented, one branch hiving off to the Ping Shan area, where again was a large region of paddy-growing land, double-cropping with moderate productivity,42 fairly well watered, and close enough to the parent village to be within the range of easy communications. Three generations later another branch hived from Kam Tin and established itself in Ha Tsuen.43 I have no information as to the quality of the soil in the area (though from Grant it would seem that productivity might not be very high44), but there is a large quantity of land. The Tangs thus secured to their near-exclusive possession the whole of the agricultural land in the Southwestern corner of the New Territories. When later other groups hived off to found villages on the Eastern side of the New Territories at Lung Kwat Tau in about 1368 A.D.,45 and at Tai Po Tau perhaps two generations earlier,47 they were less fortunate. Not only were they out of the immediate power sphere of the Tang Clan but they moved into an area where other clans were already settled or in the process of settling.\n\nThe Hau48, who were the next of the clans to arrive, settled in an area which was well watered but rather too low-lying to be safe against flood. They appear to have had little power, and after an initial period of growth, when they founded several new villages,49 seem to have lost all impetus. Their land is of good quality, but when they expanded to Ping Kong,50 Kam Tsin,51 and Yin Kong,52 they did so along a line of poorer quality soil,53 arguing perhaps prior settlement in the nearby rich Sheung Shui", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205079, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "30\n\nHUGH D. R. BAKER\n\nvillage and lands and move over to the village of Tsung Pak Long64 in the inferior land area already partly occupied by the Haus. Nor is it possible now to discover what it was that enabled the Lius after only seven generations to drive out the Kans, while neither the Pangs nor the Haus had done so after a much longer period of settlement.\n\nThe Mans were the last of the five to settle. The lineage of Tai Hang secured the lower end of the fertile valley of Lam Tsuen, and with double-cropping, mostly above-average land, were well off.65\n\nThe Mans of San Tin settled in an area of marginal land, with access to some quantity of poor quality land recently risen from the sea, which would grow one crop of brackish-water paddy.66 There is reason to suppose that the area of this land has increased considerably since they settled there,67 enabling the lineage to support a large number of members and expand without segmentation to any great extent.\n\nThus the five clans occupied the majority of first-class land in the area. The possession of good land in quantity was one of the only ways perhaps in which a lineage of this area could rise to power, either on a local or a national basis. The best land of the New Territories was, and still mostly is, in the possession of these five clans, and certainly in the local situation it was these five clans which wielded power. The present-day situation plays down rather than emphasises the power which they formerly held; much of their land for instance being rented out to other lineages, so that the actual area of five-clan settlement is not a guide to the amount of land which they in fact own, while many of their old holdings have been allowed to lapse of recent years. The most powerful of all, and the wealthiest of all, was the Tang Clan, the clan which had settled on the most fertile and rewarding land. The rising of land from the sea near the Man village of San Tin, while not making the Mans wealthy, enabled them to support a large populace, which in turn led to their rise to a position of some power through sheer weight of numbers early in the last century. The acquisition of the Sheung Shui land enabled the Lius to expand as one undivided lineage. Shifts in land values have produced changes in wealth, as is particularly exemplified by the Pangs and their holdings of land which has turned out to be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205094, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "THE FIVE GREAT CLANS\n\n45\n\n63 Ibid., In fact there was a second geomancer (of the eighth generation) cooperating in this plan,\n\n64 松柏朗\n\n65 Grant, op. cit., figs. VI(e) and (f). These figures also point to one of the mysteries of the New Territories—the settlement of the very rich upper half of the Lam Tsuen Valley by Hakka lineages, a phenomenon which denies the usual pattern of Punti monopoly of first-class land.\n\n66 Ibid., fig. IV(a).\n\n67 Ibid., fig. I(c), and p. 2. For a map see K.M.A. Barnett, \"Hong Kong before the Chinese” in JHKBRAS, Vol. 4, 1964.\n\n68. This moribund market was revived in 1925, and has thriven since 1949.\n\n69 元朗儅爐.\n\n70 大埔舊墟\n\n71 See Robert G. Groves, “The Origins of Two Market Towns in the New Territories\" in Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories, HKBRAS, Hong Kong, 1965, p. 17.\n\n72 Ibid., p. 18.\n\n73 For a brilliantly worked out study of marketing systems of this sort see G. William Skinner, “Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China” in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XXIV, Nos. 1-3, 1964-5.\n\n74 For some other ways in which they made the markets pay, see Groves, op. cit., page 18.\n\n75 See J. W. Hayes, \"The Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898\", JHKBRAS, Vol. 2, 1962, for an incomplete list of markets operative at the time. Sha Tau Kok and Shek Wu Hui are notable omissions.\n\n76.\n\n77 坑頭村-\n\n78 See, for example, Freedman, op. cit., pp. 66ff,\n\n79***. But they are often more in the nature of 'leaders' than 'representatives', a fact which is recognised in the title by which the villagers more commonly address them HE.\n\n80 The festival of Chung Yeung.\n\n81 Called ch'i l'ong.\n\n82 荃灣.\n\n83 See J. M. Potter, Ping Shan: the Changing Economy of a Chinese Village in Hong Kong, micro-filmed thesis for the degree of Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1964.\n\n84 or T.\n\n85 As witness an incident a few years ago in San Tin, where, in an adultery case, a man was condemned by the villagers to drowning in a pig-basket in the pond. Timely intervention by the police was all that saved him,\n\n86 Rightly or wrongly the view persists in the rural areas that no contact with authority is good contact.\n\n87 A.\n\n88 FA. They are mentioned under the name of Sia-wu in Chen Han-seng, Agrarian Problems in Southernmost China, 1936.\n\n89 Quite what brought about the disappearance of this institution is not clear to me. Certainly it was not interference from the Government of Hong Kong, as witness the report by J. Russell dated 18th July 1886 and appended", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205747, "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-1969", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n47\n\nWhen the party regained their boat May sent the civilians back to Hong Kong. He took the remainder of his men to the matshed hill, where he intended to spend the night. As May deployed his men on the hillside, men from Fan Leng took the card of Man Cham-tsun—leader of the Man lineage of Tai Hang—to villages throughout the area, asking for help in an assault on his position.\n\nWhen darkness fell, May could see lights in the five villages nearest the hill and more lights moving along the footpaths to the rear of his position. Bombs were exploded in the adjacent valley and parties whistled and signalled as they moved forward. Realising that he could not hold the hill, May withdrew to an adjacent one and from there watched the attack. A signal drum sounded and there was a concerted rush from all sides to the crest of the hill. The matsheds were fired and a search begun for the British party. May and his men hid in a thicket of rushes and cactus until early the next morning, when they were able to escape unobserved.\n\n+\n\n-\n\n+\n\nEnquiries made the next day, by Stewart Lockhart and General Gascoigne, showed that the assault had been made by villages from within the Ts'at Yeuk. Of the seven yeuk, only one—Ting Kok Yeuk—appears not to have participated. In retrospect, May estimated that between 100 and 200 men had been involved. He concluded: \"what struck me most was the evidently organized manner in which members from the surrounding villages concentrated to take part in the attack... This is no doubt a method... adopted both for offence and defence.\"60 The Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Blake, took a detached view of the affair. “I am not disposed to attach much importance to this attack upon Mr. May and his party. Such a sudden access of militant irritability is not uncommon in Ireland, and subsides as rapidly as it rises.\"61\n\nThe next ten days were busy ones for the resistance leaders, particularly those of Ha Tsuen and Kam Tin. They visited villages throughout the area and exhorted people to oppose the occupation. Ammunition was purchased in bulk. Captured account books, associated with an ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen, show that gunpowder, ball, and percussion caps were being ordered throughout the earlier part of April. For example, the section for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205749, "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-1969", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "# MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n49\n\nThe resistance movement had now reached a state of readiness. Further subscriptions of silver were obtained and responsibility for provision of rations allocated. On 13th April Ping Shan supplied pigs as food for the militia. By 14th April an advance force was in position on the hills overlooking Tai Po. It was composed of units from Fan Leng, Kam Tin, the Lam Tsuen valley, and Pat Heung. A British party making preparations for the flag raising saw about 150 men on the hills to the northwest. Four or five standards were seen, and the Chinese \"kept up an incessant yelling, beating of gongs, and firing of crackers, or guns, probably jingals ...\" 64\n\nWhen the Governor heard of these events at Tai Po he decided to station a force there immediately. On the morning of 15th April, two units were dispatched from Hong Kong. Captain Superintendent May, in charge of 22 policemen, left by launch for Tai Po. A company of the Hong Kong Regiment* — comprising 125 officers and men — set off overland from Kowloon, with orders to rendezvous with the police that afternoon.\n\nWhen the police landed near the matshed hill they were fired upon by forces from the Lam Tsuen valley, Tai Hang, Pat Heung, and Kam Tin. The militia of Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan had not been committed, although Ha Tsuen was, on this day, responsible for rations. By this time the infantry company was only a short march from Tai Po. Its commanding officer, Captain E. L. C. Berger, could see that the hills were crowded with several thousand militia, displaying six or seven different banners. As they approached the market he noted that the Chinese were uniformed and that the units nearest him occupied good tactical positions.\n\nThe soldiers joined the police on the matshed hill and found their situation difficult. The hills to the west and northwest were occupied by militia. To the east was Tolo Harbour. Twelve pieces of light artillery — probably jingals and mortars — kept up a steady fire on them from two positions. There was also continuous musketry fire. If the aim of the militia had been better, the casualties would have been heavy. Shortly thereafter the militia began an advance but were driven back by volley fire. This was the situation when H.M.S. \"Fame\" arrived late that afternoon.\n\n* A regiment of the Indian Army, with British officers and Indian (Pathan) other ranks, not to be confused with the volunteer unit of this name in present day Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205751, "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-1969", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n51\n\nA third letter explains the reasons for posting forces to Castle Peak and to Sha Kong, near Deep Bay. \"A strong force must be posted at Tai Po in order to resist with our full force. The two posts at Castle Peak and Sha Kong should have many flags flying in order to mislead the enemy. A force of the stronger men of your district should be detached to take part in the engagement [at Tai Po]. Sixty per cent should be retained for self protection. If troops arrive from Ngan Tin [Pan Tin] they should all be sent to Tai Po.\"66\n\nMonday, 17th April, began quietly for the British at Tai Po. H.M.S. \"Humber\" and H.M.S. \"Peacock\" arrived during the morning and anchored off-shore. A conference was held on the mat-shed hill and General Gascoigne indicated that he hoped to establish a new base camp, in the Lam Tsuen valley, by Tuesday evening. These leisurely plans were not realized. Shortly after three o'clock Chinese forces moved onto a hill some 3,000 yards away and commenced firing. The British artillery returned fire and 250 men from the Hong Kong Regiment moved off in an attempt to dislodge the militia.\n\nThe British force — Indian troops commanded by British officers — entered the Lam Tsuen valley and began to work to the southwest. The valley is about half a mile wide and two miles long. A narrow path ran down its centre and much of the level ground was devoted to rice. The militia of Kam Tin, Pat Heung, and Shap Pat Heung had taken up positions on the higher, wooded slopes. When the British moved into the valley, the militia opened fire. According to one British participant, they had \"chosen their positions well, and if they had fired well, the British troops would have fared badly.\" The Chinese had assumed their opponents would advance along the path down the valley and placed their guns accordingly. But immediately they came under fire, the soldiers abandoned the path for the hillsides and \"drove back the enemy from hill to hill and working admirably, like true Indian Frontier fighting men, took full advantage of cover.\"\n\n68\n\nIn spite of their initial mistake, the militia fought well and vigorously. They \"fired almost incessantly for one and a half hours, pouring in round shot 3.4 inches in diameter from muzzle loaders and dropping musketry fire all about our men. Fortunately", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207072, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "HONG KONG PLACE NAMES\n\n137\n\nTan Ka175, three kinds of Hakka137 and Hoklo138, Pun Yue Cantonese is widely understood but less widely spoken, particularly among the old men and women whom one consults for place-names. To this difficulty, combined with a simple misprint, is to be attributed the map name of the mountain north of the Lam Tsuen140 Valley. It is Tai To Yan1—Razor Cliff. The Nam Tau dialect pronounces this Tai Tau Yang, which became Tai Tan Yang by misreading the final letter of Tau.\n\nEven with field workers who are fluent in the local languages, it is not easy to keep the record straight. Country people the world over take a delight in mystifying strangers. Add to this the Chinese convention against direct question and answer, and it will be seen that the chances of a surveyor, working against time, getting a correct list of the names of topographical features, or even of the chief villages, are not good. The wonder is not that there are so many mistakes, but that any of the names are right.\n\nFinally, the best maps (such as they are) are not readily available even to many public servants, and the mountaineer and hiker, from whom corrections might come, often has to content himself with an old battered copy of an extinct edition.*\n\nFor all these reasons I welcome Mr. Tregear's gazetteer as I welcomed his map. As far as I can see from a careful check of the draft, all the important names are there, and they are down correctly. Such omissions as there are result from the fact that some features have an English name but no Chinese one—or if they have, nobody can be found who remembers it.\n\nOne thing which has not been included is a translation or explanation of each name. The reason will become clear to anybody who cares to read the second part of this paper, in which I have listed the principal elements of local place-names, for the understanding of some of which we have to extend our inquiries back to the days before the Chinese came to these parts.\n\nBefore the Chinese\n\nIn a talk to the Rotary Club130 of Hong Kong on 8th November, 1955, I said:\n\n'Under our very noses, and separated from our time by not more than 600 years, we have a linguistic problem which no one has\n\n* The position is now greatly improved as a result of new and extensive re-mapping of the Colony. See JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 131-140.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208136, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n159\n\nrocks that are the product of rapid cooling at close to atmospheric pressure.\n\nThe minerals composing the rocks have a high content of silica and are said, therefore, to be acid (as opposed to basic rocks that contain comparatively small amounts of silica). Acid rocks are inherently more viscous in the molten state than are basic rocks, and so volcanoes containing acid material are particularly liable to explosions. The peak of Tai Mo Shan, and the high ridges that fan out from it, are composed of coarse tuff - material that was blown from a volcano in solid particles and then cemented together. By contrast, the lower slopes on the southern and eastern sides are formed from material that was blown from the volcano in a viscous condition; this material is also cemented together but its texture is fine because it solidified at atmospheric pressure. On the northern slopes, running down to the Lam Tsuen valley, the rocks are essentially the same except where they have been altered by intrusions of more coarse-grained materials.\n\nProbably the most important practical aspect is that the rocks, like most others in Hong Kong, are high in silica. Consequently they contain only low concentrations of the important plant nutrients and so yield soils of low fertility.\n\nAccording to Grant (1960) the two main types of soil in Hong Kong have fairly well-defined distributions:\n\n(i) red-yellow podzol: is formed from granitic rocks at all altitudes, and on other rocks above 450 metres;\n\n(ii) krasnozem: is never formed from granite, but is formed from other rock types below about 400-450 metres.\n\nThe best way to study a soil is by means of a pit which reveals a profile of the soil from the surface downward. Road cuttings and the like are convenient for this purpose. On this basis, the two main types of soil may be described briefly as follows:\n\n(i) Red-yellow podzol. The layer of soil proper is usually quite shallow, about 30-45 cm. above the parent rock. Three or four layers are usually visible: a greyish-yellow or greyish-red top layer, then a paler greyish layer, and then a red, yellowish-red or yellow layer above the parent material.\n\n(ii) Krasnozem. The layer of decomposed rock is usually very thick, from 2 to 12 metres. The color is a shade of reddish", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208144, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\nPlate 4. A-Lichen Aspicilia sp. (ca. natural size) \n\nB-Lichen Xanthoparmelia sp. (ca. natural size) \n\nC \n\nThe grasshoppers Gastrimargus sp. and Patanga sp. The body of Patanga (r.h.s.) is about 6.5 cm long; the yellow and black pattern on the hind-wing of Gastrimargus (l.h.s.) is characteristic of the genus.\n\nPlate 5. A-terraces on slopes above the Kadoorie Experimental and Extension Farm.\n\n \nB-view of the stone retaining walls; note that the terrace is not flat but slopes from rear to front and from one side to the other.\n\nYuen Long \nShek Kong \nAir Strip & \nCamp \nOld Shek Kong Camp \nKadoorie Exp. \n& Ext. Farm \n1958 \n\n \n 300\n 900\n 800\n \n \n 0480\n 700\n +\n \n \n 600\n 500\n \n \n\nPoints visible from Stop \n\nDeep Bay old S.K. Summit of Kadoorie \n\nAirstrip \n\nCamp & Exp. & Ext. Farm, \n\nand Terraced Hill-sides \n\nLan Tau \n\nIsland \n\nTsing Yi Island \n\nCastle Peak \n\nTsing Yi Island \n\n·Route Twisk \n\nTsuen \n\nНап \n\nTown/ \n\n-Tarık \n\nFarm \n\n300. \n\nP \n\nTai Po \n\nvia Lam Tsuen Valley \n\nKowloon \n\nKn. \n\n+ \n\nN \n\nFigure 1. Sketch map of Tai Mo Shan complex, showing the contours in metres.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208148, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n171 \n\nHigher up the mountain, there were those who were content with more modest quarters. Pre-war, Heywood found such a retreat beside some large rocks high on the mountain. \n\nKeeping always to the west of the stream, you will reach a secluded upper valley where there is a Buddhist settlement. Two of the charming and courteous people of this place once showed me round their home, which consisted of a cave under a huge overhanging boulder. A thatched porch shaded the wayfarer as he sat drank tea (and how very refreshing Chinese tea can be when you are out walking). Inside was the living room with beds and a table and a little shrine, all kept spotlessly clean, and down below was an underground kitchen, supplied with a clear trickle of water through a chink in the rocks.\" \n\nIn contrast to these newer institutions there is at least one very old Buddhist nunnery, the Ling Wan Chi (†). This is stated to be a fifteen-century foundation, associated with the powerful family of Tang of Kam Tin in the New Territories (JHKBRAS 13 (1973): 128-9). \n\n10. On all sides of the mountain, these earlier institutions have now been joined by a large number of smaller, more modest foundations, some in their own houses, others in rented accommodation. These, on the Tsuen Wan side, are largely Buddhist and most of them are intended for women, many of whom are retired domestic servants ending their lives in quiet. The outside and refugee origin of some of these persons is reflected in the names of their halls. A modest temporary structure in Lo Wai is named for the famous old Wing Ning hall (永寧堂) in Toi Shan city (台山城), in existence long before it became a county seat, as the owner told me proudly, whilst a larger pre-war hall is named Tung Po To, the 'Po To isle in the East' (=Kwangtung) after its founder's home monastery in Po To Island in the Yangtse, one of the homes of Chinese Buddhism.* \n\nMyths and Legends \n\n11. An account of this region written nearly 120 years ago by Rudolf Krone, a German protestant missionary of the Rhenish Mission, states, \n\n* For a more famous sister, the 'Po To in the South' situated at Amoy in the Fukien province see Pitcher: 78 and illustration at 161.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208154, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n177 \n\n26. Water was, of course, Tai Mo Shan's greatest natural resource. Before the construction of the Shing Mun catchwaters pre-war, and those for the Tai Lam Chung reservoir post-war, a tremendous flow of water ran down the mountain. It assisted in the gradual formation of land for houses and cultivation at its two main stream mouths in Tsuen Wan,* and was also used for industrial purposes. Water power drove the 24 incense mills located on the various streams of Tsuen Wan between 1900-1910 and before. (JHKBRAS 16 (1976):282-283). Stream water was also essential to the manufacture of bean curd and bean stick, another very old Tsuen Wan local industry, in which the quality of the product was directly related to the availability of a continually available pure water supply (see pp. 216-218 of this Journal). \n\nPublic Works \n\n27. In any hill area in which streams abound and become fast-flowing torrents in wet weather, there is a need for bridges across which travellers and villagers carrying heavy loads can proceed in safety. Tai Mo Shan has its share of such streams, and there are surviving bridges here and there in the hills and on its lower slopes. Among those known to me the largest is the Po Chai Bridge at Chung Hang, a few minutes' walk from my office in Tsuen Wan. Beside it is a battered slate-like tablet commemorating its repair in the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor, a curious titling which owes its inspiration to the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty in the same year as its reconstruction (see Dingle: 89 for a similar dating that gave me the clue to this one and illustrates the wave of Chinese feeling that linked places as far apart in these two cases as Hankow and Tsuen Wan). The subscribers were the leading villagers and shopkeepers of Tsuen Wan and places linked to it by social and business ties. \n\n28. Another bridge, further up the same valley at a place called Ngo Tei (#) or Goose Land—probably its geomantic name—has no tablet. However it is also an old bridge, and an elderly villager of Pak Shek Kiu, an abandoned hill village higher up, credits its repair fifty years ago by a city merchant from Hong Kong as the 'price' paid to the villages to allow burial of one of his relatives there. \n\n* The old name for Tsuen Wan was Chin Wan (**) or Shallow Bay which directly reflects the effect of the mountain on the bay. It was in use until the late 19th century, being replaced first by Tsuen Wan and then...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208163, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "186 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nrelating to it. The tour will include a visit to the Tin Hau Temple at Miu Kong, Tsuen Wan, where there is a memorial to the war and a tablet to the Tsuen Wan villagers who were killed. Also to the Kwan Tei Temple at Kam Tin, where part of the Shing Mun villagers were resettled in 1928, which contains a tablet to the Shing Mun villagers killed in the struggle. \n\nFrom the Tsuen Wan ferry pier, the party went first by coach to the Shing Mun reservoir, sometimes called the Jubilee Reservoir because of its completion at the time of King George V's jubilee year (1935). A picnic lunch on one of the vantage points with barbecue and sitting out facilities was followed by a talk by Dr. James Hayes, Tour Leader, on the history and livelihood of the former villagers who lived in the valley for nearly 300 years before their removal in 1928 for the reservoir project. \n\nAfter lunch, the party moved to Kam Tin where the main body of the Shing Mun people moved in 1928. Here our intrepid and helpful bus driver got into difficulties in a confined space between a USD refuse trailer and the gate to the school compound. He was rescued by the action of a group of Members who dismantled a tied up, projecting hawker cart whilst, with characteristic energy and flair, Professor Tony Reynolds directed the driver, conjuring up visions of problems expertly handled many years ago in far Yenan!* \n\nAfter this episode, we were welcomed by the village representative Mr. Cheng Siu-fong (*) and the Headmaster of the Shing Mun New Village School, Mr. Cheung Sze-man (X). We were entertained to tea in the school which has an interesting history. It bears the same name as the old school at Shing Mun Tai Wai built for the villagers by their leaders very many years before their removal in 1928. After the move to Kam Tin it was reprovisioned in the ancestral halls and in 1958, under a subsidized village school building programme supported by the Education Department and New Territories Administration, it transferred to the present six classroomed school building. \n\nOver tea our hosts told us something of the village history after the move to Kam Tin. The main difference was in livelihood, because their agricultural holdings by purchase and rent were only a fraction of those held at Shing Mun, inevitably since Kam Tin had been long densely settled by the Tang clan and later inhabitants. \n\n* See his article at pp 43-54 of this Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208190, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n213\n\ndation of the Land Court, the Governor decided that 14 elders of the Northern District should be compensated for certain \"tax-lord\" rights claimed by them to have existed before the convention, but not compatible with the principles of British administration, by the grant of 252.33 acres of Crown land in the Northern District, to be selected by each \"tax-lord\" in proportion to the value of the right claimed by him.\" Also, see Enclosure 7, no. 172 mentioned above, to the effect that Kam Tin collected taxes in the Pat Heung Valley on land it didn't own. Much more is to be learned on this tax-lord system; I expect to glean more information from the records of the debate before the Land Court, 1904, which may be contained in the CSO reports.*\n\n28. The Tangs of Kam Tin existed as a power often beyond the reach of the local magistracy. There is evidence of widespread non-payment of land-taxes and squeeze. On the former point, see the San On Letters appended below. Squeeze was collected primarily from the Tai Ping Kuk and similar organizations of Structure B type. The Tangs of Kam Tin were apparently not members of this Sham Chun group [see Petition to Lockhart in Extension Papers.] Also, note Sung's tale regarding the use of the Wong Ku relationship in the successful refusal to paying squeeze, the major source of revenue in San On county.\n\n29. In summary, then, the Tangs were land-lords and tax-lords who existed and operated as a power unto themselves, dominating the local scene and ignoring the tendons of local government whenever possible.\n\n30. Two statements regarding the status of sai-man (*R,): “We give them cows, we give them houses, we even give them women”. Also, \"When the bridal procession passed through Kam Tin on its way to Pat Heung or Sap Pat Heung, the bride and groom were forced to descend and kow-tow.\" There is general agreement among Tangs and non-Tangs in the Kam Tin area that sai-man and sai-chuk (clans \"with same name\") were constantly reminded of their \"place\".\n\n31. We uncovered a great deal of smouldering resentment and bitterness in Kam Tin, directed against the Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan branches of the clan. One tale concerns a \"war\" with Ping Shan over tax-collection rights in the vicinity of Shun Fung Wai.\n\n* Kept in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208192, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTHE FUNG-SHUI OF KAM TIN\n\n215\n\n(A short explanatory introduction on the fung-shui of Kam Tin is here attached.\n\nThe ancestral hall of the Tang clan, Ching Lok Tso Tong (#), which is situated at Pak Wai Tsuen of Kam Tin, has its Fung-shui main branch near Tai Mo Shan (*). It curls its way through the valley of Kwun Yam Shan ( ). From Wang Toi Shan (#) rises the \"dragon\". Its uprising, so to speak, is very magnificent. The Dragon then starts to serpent up and down, passing through Chiu Keng (£) with more strength. Forging forward vigorously to the left, there comes the Kei Lun Shan (t) to protect it. On the right, a branch stretches out from Tai Mo Shan to Shek Wu Tong () and Ma On Kong (4), to pave its way forward. A short distance from Au Tau (1ƒƒ) see the circling round of all these ranges.\n\nIt is from this setting that the Dragon threads its way out, with various small and big ranges on all sides. Here, the Dragon once again finds its way via Kai Kung Shan (A) with Kwai Kok Shan (圭角山) on the right and Chat Sing Ngor (七星崗) on the left. The Dragon surges up and then down, turning left and right, like thousands of horses racing together, and when it comes to Tai Kong ( j ), the land slopes down gradually. Ngor Nar Lan (A) on the left leaves space for its soaring down and the Cheung Shan (✯ J.) on the right blocks any obstacles that would harm it. This range then dips into the water, passes through the grasslands and comes up to Gau Gan (i). Here it stretches out its wings to protect the Dragon to settle on the cave. The naturally formed reservoirs on both sides of Gau Gan (4) resemble the Food Store (4) and the Wealth Store (✯).\n\nThe place where the Dragon settles is the ancestral hall of Ching Lok Tso (##). The Dragon dives down into the water and the surface becomes peaceful. So now the Dragon is hiding here. With this setting, the place is bound to be very prosperous. To begin with, the green carpet of grass just in front of the hall means the outcome of a big \"esteemed clan\" (†) Furthermore, with all the water from nearby fields flowing towards the hall, and the streams from Tai Kong Po (which follow the Dragon and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208296, "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": 20, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "4\n\nHong Kong Museum of History invited members to the screening of three Korean films at the City Hall. The films concerned the art and archeology of important sites in Korea. In September we were again concerned with Hong Kong History when Dr. Alan Birch, Reader in History at Hong Kong University, spoke on Hong Kong 1937-45: Conquest and Liberation.\n\nAlso in September Dr. Marilyn Grayburn, lecturer in Indian Archeology, University of Cleveland Museum, spoke on 5,000 years of the Indus Valley Civilization, and in October Mr. Lawrence Tam, Curator of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, and himself also an artist of repute and teacher of Chinese Art History, spoke on the Shek Wan Pottery of Kwangtung Province in connection with an exhibition current at the City Hall Museum.\n\nIn December Mr. Henri Vetch, a long standing member of the Society, spoke of his experiences in Peking where he worked as publisher between 1920-1951, when he was imprisoned for three years by the Communists. In January an interesting talk was given by Dr. Wen Hsiang-lai, a neurologist and neurosurgeon as well as authority on acupuncture. He spoke of his recent experiments at the Tung Wah Hospital in the use of electrical stimulation using acupuncture points and needles in connection with drug addiction. And finally Dr. William Parish gave a talk in February on \"Status and Power in Kwangtung Villages under the People's Republic.\" Dr. Parish is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago.\n\nBoth local excursions and overseas trips are a regular feature of our activities and in December Dr. James Hayes arranged a visit to Tsuen Wan where he talked about local temples, rural organization and traditional inter-village feuding. The Society is continuing its programme of cultural tours abroad with a ten-day visit to Kashmir and Kathmandu starting later this week. The trip has been arranged by Dr. Brian Shaw. Where possible we deal directly with hoteliers and pass on group discounts and commissions directly to members travelling. Your Council has been investigating the feasibility of mounting future tours to Afghanistan; the Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Taxila sites; Ladakh Darjeeling, Sikkim and Bhutan; Dr. Shaw will again be looking into this possibility. Dr. Leigh Wright is also looking at the possibility of a tour to the old Straits Settlements. Now that the Chinese authorities are encouraging travel with.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208994, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "124\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nLast year the Pang clan village of Fanling held its great ta chiu. It happens once every ten years. The film you saw at the beginning was taken there, and many of the photographs on display too. I was lucky enough to be able to spend nearly all the days of the ta chiu in Fanling. To my surprise, I found myself constantly being greeted and spoken to in English -- not in Hong Kong English, but in the different local dialects of different geographical regions in the United Kingdom. The speakers ranged in age from 3 to 25 years. All were children of the restaurant emigration which has taken place since about 1953. With their parents, they had come back for the occasion. To this village of less than 3,000 inhabitants, more than 500 people had come back by air at great personal expense. Asked why they had spent so much money, the parents all gave the same reply: \"We want our children to know our customs and traditions\"; \"We want our children to know....\" A similar thing happened in Ho Chung in December, and this year the villages of the Lam Tsuen valley expect the same. These people understand about personal identity; they know the immense value of the intangible; and they can still experience their cultural heritage. But whether the future will allow them to continue to do so we cannot tell. Even if it does (which I think rather unlikely) there are already far, far larger numbers of young (and older) people in our towns who have no chance at all of experiencing the intangibles of their cultural heritage at first hand. The only way they can be given even a small part of what is, after all, their right to their own past is through the kind of work that historians and anthropologists have done and are still for a short time able to do in the New Territories.\n\nMost of you will not know that I am both the oldest and the pioneer social anthropologist in Hong Kong. It is a fact—now I suppose an historical fact—that I started the whole thing off, way back in 1950; and I have spent most of my academic life teaching, reading, researching, and writing about it. It is my hope and intention to continue this kind of work and, in cooperation with my historian friends, help to see it through to a triumphant conclusion sometime before the year 1990. That is why I accepted an invitation to come to the Chinese University, and, to answer the question I set at the beginning, that is also my justification for daring to speak to such an audience as this on the cultural heritage of the New Territories.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211984, "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": 399, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "374\n\nwhich has been copied in an untitled manuscript in the possession of Mr. Dang Yu-Hing).36 Dang Kei-faan Genealogy in the Baker Collection of New Territories genealogies in the British Library.\n\n37 The elder was Dang Wing-Sau, the head of the lineage. I do not know which generation he was in. See Taga (1982:92).\n\n38 Translated in Sung (1974:177-179).\n\n39\n\n40 See table above and the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents, vol. 1.\n\nProbably Dang Hei-Seui. See Sung (1974:166-168) and a genealogy of his segment included in Hugh Baker's Collection of Genealogies.\n\n41 Patrick Hase has drawn my attention to the importance of the monastery as central to the establishment Hung-Yi's descendants in Kam Tin, just as Ling To nunnery is to the Dangs of Ha Tsuen. The monastery and the earlier temple are a major element in the fung-seui of the Pat Heung valley and Kam Tin. The rivers important to irrigation in the area all flow from the mountain on which the monastery stands.\n\n42\n\n41\n\n44 I have not tried to find further information on this man in gazetteers.\n\nSee Sung (1973:112-113) for the Hung Sing Temple.\n\nThis was one of two stories. They were thought of as alternatives although there is no contradiction between them. I shall relate the other one later.\n\n45 I was told that the Juk-Yun Am used to be at the present site of the Gwaan-Dai Temple of Shing Mun San Tsuen, and San-Sin Fu near Shui Mei.\n\n46 Two items in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 2 were probably intended for this very grave. These were among the papers of Dang Ting-sam from the year 1873. The first was a request for donations towards the establishment of a charitable grave. The second was intended for a stone inscription. There is strong evidence that the charitable grave was established before the British came, although many present-day Dangs believe that those buried in the grave were those who died fighting against the British. The jiu festival record for 1895 included the Dei-Jong Wong of Tung-Fuk Tong among the gods to be invited, and an elder in his nineties remembered seeing gam-taap jars for bones when he was very small. He deduced that those must have been the remains of people who died before 1898, because one had to wait for many years he suggested ten — until the bones could be extracted after a first burial.\n\n47 A bin-ngaak (horizontal inscribed board) presented to the Buddhist altar at its completion included ten names who were believed to be the share-holders of the Tong. They were three Wan-Guk jiu descendants of Shui Mei: Baak-Cheung, Daat-Hung, and Jik-Hing; three brothers Yat-Wa, Seui-Chuen, Gam-Wa and two of their nephews, and Baak-Yi, all descendants of Wan-Gaan; and a Hin-Yiu of Kam Tin Shi.\n\n48 Plus a inscribed stone on the ground saying Naam-mo O-Mei-To-Fat, set up to offset the bad influences that caused traffic accidents near the stone.\n\n49 Hoi-dang for a village did not always take place at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. In the Shui Mei case it took place at the Tin-Hau Temple.\n\n50 The elders made it clear that gu here does not mean “shares\".\n\n51 The subjects for these paper images were specified in the contract made with the craftsmen. The contract was included in the general record for the festival and was copied from the previous ones. But neither the organizers nor the contractor seem to have paid much attention to the details of the prescription.\n\n52 The object is probably more commonly known by the name dong 'an and is more often installed over the central area of the Taoist altar rather than in the backstage room. See", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212383, "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": 325, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "302\n\nNOTES\n\nL\n\nThis same carver also referred to the Fukienese Pestilence Wang Yeh as \"pan-shen pan-kuei\" (Note 1: Page 59 of Vol 29: 1989 Journal) as they too are neither gods nor demons, but 'humans of the other world'.\n\nSee Plates 7-9.\n\nTHE MAKING OF A HUSK-GRINDER\n\nMr Chung Yick Ming, the Chairman of Tai Po Rural Committee took me to see Mr Chung Koon Tai (#) who is a villager of Chung Uk Village in Lam Tsuen Valley in Tai Po, New Territories.\n\nMr Chung Koon Tai is now 76 years old. He first joined the trade of husk-grinder (A) making when he was 16 years old as an apprentice. His teacher was a fellow clansman. He retired in 1980. He also got an apprentice to succeed to the craft of husk grinder making. Because of the decline of rice farming in the New Territories since the 60's, the apprentice could not find a living with his profession, and therefore has migrated to UK.\n\nIn those golden days of husk-grinder making, Mr Chung received orders for grinder making from villages all over the New Territories. He had to travel to these villages on foot and stayed there for three to four days to make a husk-grinder. He also made husk-grinders for rice-grinding shops (*) in the old market towns in Tai Po, Yuen Long and Tuen Mun. Chan Yat Sun (H), the former Heung Yee Kuk Chairman, was also his customer when he owned a rice-grinding shop in the town of old Castle Peak (Tuen Mun today).\n\nThere used to be two skilled workers working together to make a husk-grinder. When they arrived at the village, they first went to find some bamboo which was available almost everywhere in the New Territories. They cut down some bamboo and then stripped the bark off layer by layer into long narrow pieces of a quarter to a half inch wide. They then wove these long narrow bamboo strips into the upper and lower parts of the outer framework of the grinder, which looked like two empty baskets. The upper part was fixed with a wooden handle and a wooden funnel which helped the grain to go to the grinding surface. The lower part was also fixed with an axis of iron in the centre.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213378, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 200, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "187\n\nIn Ho Sheung Heung, the 'guarding star' at the entrance to the village is a bamboo. However, it is not always the case that a tree growing beside a shrine has any relationship to that shrine. At Ho Sheung Heung trees besides the southern Pauk Kung have no fung shui significance and have simply grown up there. At Tar Om trees near the main shrine have grown up in the seventy years since the shrine was built and have little, if any, fung shui importance. None of the villagers questioned thought that the fung shui woods had any sacred or spiritual value outside their fung shui importance.\n\nAnother important reason for the protection of large, old trees was that they had been planted by the ancestors. Examples are at Man Uk Pin, Ma Mat Wai, Ping Kong, and Ma Tsuek Leng. Few of these trees were individually venerated except for the 'grandfather tree' at Kuk Po which was planted by the founders of the village to honour the local earth gods.\n\nVillages often have examples of many types of fung shui tree. An example is the village of Sheung Wo Hang which has an inviolable fung shui wood in which all vegetation is protected, in addition to ancestorally planted trees which guard particular shrines and which reinforce certain fung shui locations, as well as earth god trees without shrines.\n\nIn some cases, shrines may not be dedicated to an earth god. At She Shan Tsuen in Lam Tsuen valley, a small shrine at the edge of the fung shui wood makes the spot at which hunters would gather to make offerings before the hunt. There is a parallel here with those shrines in the sacred forests of Nepal at which hunters gather to worship (Mansberger, 1991).\n\nBoth Tar Wong and Paak Kung shrines guard the important places and fung shui points of the village, such as the wells, irrigation dams, \"dragon veins\" and especially the entrances to the village. The latter are often marked by a Tar Wong shrine. Where a path or road leaves a village, invariably where an approaching path curves around the end of a fung shui wood, the site is known as \"the mouth of water\", (the flow of a road symbolising water). The site is often associated with a clump of bamboo, a large rock or a large camphor or banyan tree, or sometimes all three, known as a \"guarding star\" in fung shui terms, as it guards against excessive outflow of chi from the village.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "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": 213581, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "147\n\nincense or joss sticks. According to Lo (1959, quoted in Iu, 1983), these trees were introduced into Guangdong Province from Vietnam in the Tang dynasty (619-907 AD) and were planted in large numbers in the New Territories during the Sung dynasty (960-1279 AD). In the late Ming period, the county of Tung-kuan was renowned throughout China for the quality of its incense. Until 1572, Tung-kuan county included the area subsequently forming the county of Hsin-an (including the present day New Territories) (Chan, 1989). In the Kuang-tung hsin-yu (Ch’u, 1974), it is noted that many people in Tung-kuan made their fortune from Kuan-heung (meaning incense from Tung-kuan) which was so popular that the annual sales values amounted to tens of thousands of taels. Incense trees were very suitable for the decomposed granite soils of the area and were particularly grown in the area of Shatin and the lower part of Lam Tsuen valley, whose name means \"forest village\", and around Tung Chung and Sha Lo Wan on Lantau. Interestingly, Schofield (1983) referring to the fine fung shui wood at Sha Lo Wan adds “In a suitable light, ancient log slides can be seen running straight down the steepest hills on this stretch of coast\", although whether these have anything to do with the incense trade may never be known.\n\nThe successful cultivation of the incense tree depended on three conditions, the suitability of the soil, adoption of proper methods of cultivation and the mastering of tapping and cutting methods for the collection of resin, which had a medicinal use. The general name of the varieties of incense produced in Tung Kwun, Po On districts, which included Hong Kong and the New Territories in those times, was \"Kuan-heung\" (Iu, 1983).\n\nThe logs were collected at Tsim Sha Tsui from where it was shipped by small boats to Shek Pai Wan near present day Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island, where it was re-shipped onto Chinese seagoing junks to Canton, SE Asia and as far away as Arabia.\n\nIt has been suggested that the cultivation of and trade in incense trees gave rise to the name of Hong Kong (meaning incense harbour). \"Little Hong Kong, or Heung-kong-wai, is said to have been so-called on account of the quantity of Pak-miu-heung-shu then growing there, the wood of these white-wood fragrant trees is called \"Nga-heung\" (i.e. fragrant wood white as a tooth), is odoriferous when burnt, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213685, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "recorded as having 29 males and 10 females resident. The boat people at Kowloon City and Sham Shui Po may have been included in the Victoria Harbour grouping. But it seems likely that the bulk of the Northern boat-people population was omitted from the statistics in 1911.\n\nAt Cheung Chau, 4,442 boat-people are recorded in 1911, 2,601 of them male. This probably includes those boat-people usually anchored at Ping Chau and Mui Wo. At Lantau, 5,413 are recorded, 3,159 of them male.** The Lantau figure probably includes, not only the floating population at Tai O, but also the people living in \"boat-huts\" on stilts there. It also probably covers those boat-people anchored at Tung Chung, and may cover those at Tuen Mun as well. In 1921, 3,552 boat people are enumerated at Cheung Chau, and 3,894 at Tai O (probably not including the “boat-hut” residents). Given the absence of some deep sea fishing boats during the 1921 Census period, it seems that the Southern District floating population statistics are broadly similar in 1911 and 1921.\n\nThe careful notification of New Territories residents as to the purpose of the 1911 Census, and the use of local men as enumerators, led to a lack of practical problems with villagers, who seem to have responded surprisingly well to the process. The police escorts had \"not very much to do,” and “no trouble whatever\" occurred.\n\nOn a more detailed basis, the civilian enumerator teams in the mainland New Territories, and the police on Lamma, in the Sham Shui Po area, and, to a lesser extent, on Lantau, seem to have done a more careful job than the police on Cheung Chau, and in the Tsuen Wan and Kowloon City areas. 598 villages were separately enumerated in the nine mainland civilian enumerator districts,\" 18 on Lamma, 49 on Lantau, and 23 in the Sham Shui Po district.\" Very few of the villages or hamlets on Lamma or in the mainland New Territories outside the Tsuen Wan and Kowloon City areas were not separately enumerated. The few that are not are hamlets closely connected with a nearby village and enumerated with it. On Lantau, however, some villages are not separately enumerated. The villages to the south of Tai O (Fan Kwai Tong, Yi O, Fan Lau), those immediately east of Tung Chung and along the upper edges of the Tung Chung valley (Tai Po, Tung Chung Hang, Wong Lung Hang, Lam Che, etc.), most of those in the Chi Ma Wan peninsula (except Shap Long), and most of the very tiny villages in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214060, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "95\n\nwith impounded water being conveyed through a 2.2km-long 2.5m-diameter tunnel, mainly in granite, and by a 5km-long conduit winding along the northern shore of the Island beneath Bowen Road to the first two slow sand filter beds above the city, and thence into the service reservoir located at a lower level. The distribution system involved laying, between 1890 and 1892, some 30 kilometres of 75-350mm-diameter cast-iron mains together with the installation of a system of fire hydrants. Major fung shui problems were encountered during the tunnelling works, rumour being that children were to be selected for burial alive to ensure success; fortunately no ritual sacrifice was needed!\n\nOn an uncontoured 1895 version of Collinson's plan (1845), there is an interesting feature clearly marked “overhead tram\" extending 2.3 kilometres between Quarry Bay and Quarry Gap. It seems likely that it would have been used to transport materials and, perhaps, workmen associated with the early Tai Tam reservoir works. As part of the Tai Tam scheme a further small high-level reservoir at Wong Nei Chong was completed in 1899. Around this time the Braemar reservoir (now Choi Sai Woo Park) and further smaller reservoirs near Quarry Bay were built, primarily to meet the needs of the large commercial Tai Koo sugar refinery and dockyard complex.\n\nWith the population already rising to about half a million, three further concrete dams within the Tai Tam valley, the largest Tai Tam Tuk being 50m high, and associated reservoirs were completed between 1904 and 1917. The upper (42m high) and reconstructed lower (20m high) concrete dams, the latter being previously a privately-owned dam built in 1890 for a paper works, impounding the Aberdeen reservoirs were later finished in 1931 and 1932 respectively, thus completing the last economical water storage development on the Island.\n\nAfter the turn of the century engineers were already looking to the New Territories to increase the supply of water for Kowloon, which had hitherto been dependent on two wells located to the north of Yau Mai Tei. As a result, the 35m-high concrete dam for the Kowloon reservoir was completed in 1910 and three further reservoirs in the vicinity were completed during the period 1925-1931 by which time the population was already approaching a million. A commercial reservoir was also built early this century to the south of Lung Wo Tsuen to provide water for Rennie's cotton factory at Junk Bay.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 } ]