[
    {
        "id": 204765,
        "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": 68,
        "title": "RAS-1964",
        "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE \n\n57 \n\nshould not, in the course of scientific investigation, be omitted as a possibility; even though subsequent events thrust them apart, by interposing a new and more vigorous culture, based on intensive agriculture and possessing sufficient military power and social drive to impose on the less numerous people of the waters and of the forests a language, a dress and a society different from that which they originally had. \n\nI will here ask you to turn your eyes for a moment to Canton, which is less than 100 miles from here and which when the first Chinese settled in this territory was, and had been for many centuries, the metropolis (and probably the only city of any size known to the inhabitants) of this region. Canton was founded originally as a Chinese trading settlement or colony, in the middle of non-Chinese territory with ethnologically non-Chinese inhabitants. It became first the capital of a peripheral kingdom, which from time to time acknowledged and was acknowledged by the Son of Heaven: then the capital of a province which from time to time, when the central government was weak, tended, and has continued to tend even into modern times, to re-assert its independence. Then in the Sui22 Dynasty it became the first port in which foreigners were officially permitted to settle and trade—I mean of course the Arabs, whose completely assimilated descendants are still to be found in Canton and Hong Kong; and finally, following the same well tried pattern (since Chinese administrators, like all others, adopted new ideas with grave reluctance and preferred to follow the old ruts) the first port to which the ebullient Europeans, following in the track of the Arabs, also came to purchase goods the Chinese did not particularly want to sell and to offer in exchange commodities they did not want to buy. \n\nThe frame of our picture, or of our jigsaw puzzle, would not be complete without a reference to Canton. Bricks bearing the imprint of, and presumably made in, Pun-yue1—that is to say Canton can be seen today in the roofs and walls of the ancient tomb, if it be a tomb, at Li Cheng Uk.83 Throughout the Tang139 Dynasty the inhabitants of Canton must still have been mainly non-Chinese, since the author of the Hsin Wu Tai Shih121 is at some pains to explain why it was that so many Chinese came and settled in this region during the disorders which brought down that dynasty. From the point of view of Canton, and therefore",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 204969,
        "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-1965",
        "page_number": 77,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "68 \n\nJEN YU-WEN \n\nas stated above, left Kuan-fu-ch'iang on the way to Ch'uan-wan (Ch'uen-wan) on the western shore of Kowloon in the year A.D. 1277, they stopped over at a place by the name of Ku-t'a (Ku-t'ab), or \"Ancient Pagoda.\" This fact had been recorded in some historical books, but where and what this place is has never been known, Now, with the revelation from this stone-inscription plus certain statements in the Genealogical Record of the Lin clan definitely referring to the Stone Pagoda, a sound conclusion can be drawn to the effect that Ku-t'a is identical to the present-day South Fu-t'ang, the northern shore of Tung-lung Islet. It is further reinforced by the fact that, according to tradition, local people used to call the said Pagoda by the name of Ku-shih-t'a (Ku-shek-t'ab) or “Ancient Stone Pagoda\" which was later abbreviated to Ku-t'a. With the discovery of the missing link a very knotty problem in the study of the itinerary of the last two emperors of the Southern Sung is rationally solved at long last, For this the value of this stone-engraving to historical scholarship is most pronounced. \n\nSecondly, from the standpoint of archaeology, this stone-engraving, done 690 years ago (1274-1965), is the oldest historic relic with a definite date in Hong Kong and Kowloon. (The history of Sung Wong Toi began three years later than this and the three characters were not engraved there until the Yuan Dynasty. The ancient tomb in Li-cheng-wu (Lee-chang-uk) appears to have a longer history, but the date is uncertain.) \n\nThirdly, from the standpoint of literature, its diction and sentences are excellent and the narration of no less than eight events in only 108 characters is terse and elegant. As a stone inscription, it should be ranked as an exemplary piece of literature of its kind. Moreover, the calligraphy possesses beauty, gracefulness and strength, being typical of the Sung style and akin to the penmanship of the celebrated poet, Su Tung-p'o. \n\nLast of all, considered as a work of art, the craftsmanship of the engraving is highly commendable. The cutting is deep and sharp, and even after having been exposed to the elements for nearly 700 years, almost all of the engraved characters remain intact. \n\nIn conclusion, this historic relic should by all means be regarded as a distinctive feature in the cultural history of Hong Kong.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205859,
        "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": 165,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n159 \n\nthe poorest class each man owns one or more houses. Besides those used for habitation some of these houses are used for keeping cattle or storage of grass etc...... Some are ancestral and joss temples which are for worshipping purposes, and most of these were left by their ancestors, the cost of originally building each of them amounting to thousands of dollars. \n\nIt was usual for a family to own more than one small house in one of the rows of houses that characterised local villages, and for its members to spread into several whilst still feeding as one household. Among specific cases is the following statement of the position at Li Cheng Uk, New Kowloon about 1910: \n\n44 \n\nWhen I went to the LING clan of Cheng Uk as a sun po tsai (童養媳) or child fiancée at the age of eight, my future husband's parents occupied five houses in a row. I slept in one with my mother-in-law, two adult but unmarried sisters-in-law slept in another, my father-in-law and two adult unmarried sons in the third, an old uncle and aunt in a fourth, and the family's hired labourers in the last. \n\n++ \n\nIn the adjoining village of Sheung Li Uk another informant's family occupied five houses next to the clan's main ancestral hall: \n\nOne of these houses was an additional ancestral hall, built to honour my own grandfather, whilst the first of the other four was used at night by my mother and father and myself; the second and third were used by my unmarried brothers in their twenties; and the fourth and last by a married brother, his wife and their small daughter. All these persons fed together. Our domestic animals were housed in a wooden barn, though it was common for dwelling houses to be used as cow houses and pigsties and for storage of grass and firewood, agricultural implements and farm produce. Our family was quite prosperous but most other families in the village occupied only a pair of house.\" (Period circa 1900 - 1910) \n\nOn Hong Kong island a few similar examples have come to my notice in the course of reading and enquiry. \n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213784,
        "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": 136,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "107\n\nof the two names of the first generation ancestor of the Chens of Tsuen Wan Sam Tong Uk” as Jiu Shi Wu (95) and also Nian Wu Lang, an ordination name. The descendants who had ordination names include his son Fa You and a great grandson Fa Qiang, among others. The last to have an ordination name include a 10th generation ancestor who was to found a Buddhist monastery.\n\nHakka Sorcerers and Rituals Related to Ordained Ancestors\n\nAlthough the practice of ordination ended in probably the middle of the 19th century, related traditions manage to survive in the Hakka \"Daoist\" ritual specialist and a rite they perform for bridegrooms of some Hakka lineages before their wedding.\n\nHakka ritual specialists were of four main varieties, the male and female spirit mediums (stenpo and gongtung), Buddhist funeral specialists (known as wosong or nammo), and sang ritual specialists who claimed to be Daoist but are clearly more closely linked to Lù Shan and Mao Shan traditions. The sang specialists' rituals include the unique feature of an assistant who is a man dressed as a woman. They use the fa-prefixed style ordination names in the ritual documents and recitation and singing. This is true at least in the case of Mr. Miao, the only one living in Hong Kong in 1981. His family were in this profession for four generations, all using Fa-X style ritual names.76 Villagers have mentioned others, among them a Li of Shataukok and a Liao of Kat O, both died before the time of my interviews.77 When asked about langming and duming, a Hakka Buddhist funeral specialist told me that he never heard about them.78\n\nThe practice of the sang specialist is documented in some detail in Zhonghua Jiu Lisu (“Old Chinese Customs”) (ZHJLS) written by a Hakka Christian of Meixian county in the 1930s. It contains information on the rite of Su Yun (“Redemption of [A Child's] Soul”) and Anlong (“Pacification of the Dragon”). The latter I witnessed at the village of Cheng Lan Shue of the New Territories. The ZHJLS shows that the names of these sessions of the ritual its author knew from the Meixian and Xinning counties, indicating that the Anlong was celebrated once every five or six years for each \"old house,\" and the couplets and flag he copied indicate that the celebration there.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    }
]