[ { "id": 204796, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "FENG CHAU\n\n87\n\nChinese New Year, were accustomed to visit their parent villages, which were in any case not far away. However, there seem in mid-century to have been close links with the Tung Kwun association of Cheung Chau. Fifteen Peng Chau shops47 subscribed to the repair of the association's premises in 1866, and Peng Chau residents may have been members of the association, as is the case with several of the Cheung Chau district and other organisations today.\n\ntoday. The extent of the help given on that occasion may be attributed either to this, or else to some very energetic canvassing by the Cheung Chau organisers.48\n\nHowever, the gradual expansion of the local community did bring with it various manifestations of communal endeavour. There was an interesting building, now in ruins, known as the Yee Chee, which was a poor house rather on the lines of the Fong Pin Hospital at Cheung Chau. It was a substantial structure constructed from the dark grey-blue bricks of the region, and rather like a temple in appearance. There were three rooms: one for sick persons, one for the dying and one for the caretaker. There were idols inside, the principal one being that of the God of Ghosts. The Yee Chee is said to have been constructed by the island Kaifong from funds specially raised for the\n\n# purpose and was maintained by them as occasion required. It was intended for use by destitute persons in poor health and as a place where they could die in peace. No one with relatives able to support him would ever let himself be taken there. Free coffins were provided by the Kaifong. It was available to all, land and sea dwellers alike. The caretaker was supported by collections and was allowed to cultivate land under the control of the Kaifong. The building was not in particularly good repair when Mr. CHUNG was a boy, and its origin can therefore be dated with confidence to 1850 or before.\n\nThe Peng Chau Kaifong mentioned in the previous paragraph had premises on each side of the Tin Hau temple. They were renovated in 1876-77 about the same time as the temple. Present elders clearly recall a tablet in the office building to one side of the temple which said it was enlarged. The annexe on the other side served as a school or guest house as the need arose. It is not certain when the Kaifong began,50 but it appears to have existed before this office was repaired and it has been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207551, "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-1975", "page_number": 319, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n311\n\nFukienese communities but also on the Yangtze, possibly in at least two areas, and is not only the patron of most entertainers (musicians, boxers, wrestlers, actors etc.) but also has the secondary function as a health and fertility god, possibly performed by the middle brother.\n\nMersham, Kent, 10 February, 1975\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nCHANG YU-TANG AND AN OLD HANGING SCROLL FROM CHEUNG CHAU\n\nThis note relates to an interesting local figure and Kwangtung worthy. It is thought that readers will be interested both in the content and style of writing of such literary pieces.\n\nIt is not known where the following material (First and Second Accounts) was obtained, nor why there should be two similar pieces in the Hong Kong Wai Chau General Association Bulletin. There are no biographies of Yu-tang in the Kwei Shin district gazetteer (last edition seems to be Ch'ien Lung 48, which is, of course, too early) nor in the Kuang Hsü 7 edition of the Wai Chau prefectural gazetteer, the most likely sources for biographical aid. (Information supplied by Mr. Arthur Lai Shue-tim of the Chinese Library, University of Hong Kong, who kindly checked them at our request).\n\nFIRST ACCOUNT [translated from the Chinese of p. 109 of the Hong Kong Wai Chau General Association Bulletin, 1964 by Francis Sham Shui-yu].\n\nGen. Cheung Yuk-tong* was appointed as the Kowloon Deputy Garrison Commander at Taipang (A). Under his charge, the inhabitants along the coasts enjoyed security and peace. Later when the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula was ceded to Britain as a colony [in 1860] he contributed immensely to establishing the demarcation line which forms the Boundary Street of today. The relics in connection with him which are partially left behind are what is called the \"Spare-the Waste-Paper Pavilion” (***) as well as his fist-writing (*) of Chinese calligraphy. One can hardly refrain from sighing with admiration whenever we think upon the historical relics.\n\n* Cantonese romanization.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208063, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "86 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\nIt is generally understood that the \"spirits who counter or cope with misfortunes”, and whose names appear on the green sheet of paper, are the main occupants of the Under Altar and others who share occupancy are there on sufferance. Only two of the five or seven spirits of the Under Altar appear in image form, the Local Wealth God and the Five Demons. The remainder are represented only as titles listed in columns. \n\nThe green sheet of paper on which the Under Altar spirits are listed is either pasted, or framed and hung, on the rear wall of the Under Altar. The titles, apart from the two outside ones which are standard, can be in any order. The local Wealth God, however, seems most frequently to be the title in the centre column. The lists which are very similar on both sides of the Pearl River estuary, are as follows: \n\nRight hand column: \n\nLeft hand column: \n\nCentre column: \n\n\"The Boy who averts calamities (or suffering) on the right\" (右使化難童郎) or (右使化難童郎) \n\n\"The Boy who averts misfortune on the left\"(左便消災童郎) \n\nThe Local Wealth God who distinguishes right from wrong both in the Human and Under Worlds (He has the title of \"Cheng Chen\") (正真財君) \n\nThe other columns are as follows: \n\nThe Two Great Spirit Generals who avert misfortune(冰消瓦解二大神將) The Five Demons who bring fortune (五鬼郎君運財童子) \n\nThe Two Gods of Mourning (二位客星君) \n\nThe White Ape (Monkey), Star God, the Prince of the Palace of the East (東宮太子白猿(猴)星君) \n\nMarshal Yin, The King of Thunder who averts the hundred sufferings/calamities (百解雷王殷大元帥)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208064, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n87\n\nOf these eight titles, Marshal Yin, a famous character in mythology, is a God in his own right in the Taoist folk religion pantheon. He is to be seen only in one temple in the heart of rural New Territories in image form, where, unconnected with any Under Altar, he is one of four generals guarding a major deity.\n\nOthers who regularly appear in the Under Altar and are the deities who share the occupancy but in image form, are the Local Wealth God and the White Tiger. Others who occasionally appear on top of, near to, or in the Under Altar include the Green Horse, Marshal Chao and a second demonic figure similar to the Local Wealth God.\n\nThe Local Wealth God (地方財神)\n\nThe major image, sometimes called the Wealth God of the Under Altar (下壇財神) or the spirit of the Location (地方神) is usually alone though very, very occasionally he may be accompanied by a somewhat similar image. A Hong Kong Cantonese writer who lived during the last century, Wu Yen-jen, in the collection “Ch'ing Tai Wu Yen-jen Yu Yen Chi” (清代吳恩仁寓言集) calls this local deity the \"Local Demon\" (地方惡魔), a description which is more honest than the anodyne and unprovocative term \"spirit\" used nowadays.\n\nThe Wealth God of the Location is a gaunt middle-aged man dressed in mourning apparel, ill-fitting robes of sacking (hessian). He has a protruding tongue and a tall dunce's cap bearing the message vertically on the front \"Fortune at one glance\" (一覽生財). His face is haggard, often with tears of blood coursing down his cheeks. Most Local Wealth Gods clutch palm leaf fans in their left hand, whilst others carry either furled umbrellas, wands with tattered edges raised above their heads in their right hands, have their arms full of paper charms, or a string of silver coins strung around their necks. The majority of images are roughly made of folded coloured papers, and bear strips of white cloth as a sign of mourning. One, in Macau, had a hessian veil stretched across the face \"to prevent him from eating worshipper's “luck\"\", so the keeper said!\n\nThe Local Wealth God is located at ground level because he is neither fit nor qualified to stand on the altar. According to a God Carver in Macau, he stands in the Under Altar for the want...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208065, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "88 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\nof a better place. In most temples he stands slightly off to one side from the middle of the Under Altar behind the incense pot. The same God Carver explained that the other, similar image in the Under Altar, is the Black and White Demon (). He too is standing, dressed in sackcloth and has his tongue protruding. He has a black face, the same four characters down the front of his dunce's cap. He too, holds the wand with its tattered decoration which he uses to lead souls safely into the Afterworld and before the Judges of Purgatory. He is sometimes known as \"The one who leads the souls\" (). The usual image, the Local Wealth God who is occasionally known as the Filial son (#7) according to the Macanese carver, is taller, stands in sackcloth, but with a white face and wearing a dunce's cap without characters.\n\nThis statement by a man who is at the heart of image making and whose other statements have been well borne out by temple keepers in both Hong Kong and Macau, has thrown a cat amongst the pigeons, as a careful examination of Under Altars reveals that very few images have black faces or characterless caps. All, with and without characters and with black or white faces, are referred to without exception by the individual temple keepers as the Local Wealth God. They added, however, that they may also be called by the less polite and now old-fashioned title of Wu Ch'ang Kuei, the \"Unpredictable Demon\" (), a term Burkhardt1 consistently used for the demonic policeman who arrests souls.\n\nThe same God Carver also explained that the Wu Ch'ang Kuei quite frequently has red tears running down his face because, apparently, as a youth he so got on his Mother's nerves that she cried herself to death. Covered by remorse and crying until he drew blood, he set himself the task of guiding first her soul, and then souls of others, safely into the through the Underworld.\n\nThe primary function of the Local Wealth God, according to the majority of temple keepers concerned, is to provide unexpected money (always in small quantities), and particularly for luck in gambling, especially horse racing. He is prayed to by gamblers who are going through a lengthy and damaging run of bad luck. In addition to this well-known ability to provide small quantities of unexpected money, a few temple keepers understand that, dressed in hemp, he has the power to drive away sickness demons and, if \n\n(1) V. R. Burkhardt: Chinese Creeds and Customs: Vols. 1-3. 1952-5 Hong Kong (SCMP).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208066, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS \n\n89 \n\nhe tries sufficiently hard enough, all other demons too. His hempen robes, they say, are not the same as those worn by mourners but are, in themselves, a charm having the power to drive away demons. The Local Wealth God also secures the safety, if so petitioned, of those who have witnessed such misfortunes as a suicide, a killing, a funeral or a fatal accident, (all of which release, or involve, roaming spirits). The witness need only visit the temple, offer a prayer and incense to the Local Wealth God for his continued safety to be assured. In some temples he is prayed to by relatives on the 49th day after a death, when green and white paper flowers are thrown over him after being taken from the hair of mourners; a sign that mourning is over. It used to be that only filial sons performed this ritual, but nowadays it has become common for any relative to take part. \n\nThe Local Wealth God, customarily, is only given plain unflavoured boiled rice and though he may be offered ordinary meat, either cooked or uncooked, he is never offered red-dyed sacrificial meat. \n\nThe Five Demons \n\nWe move on now to one of the less frequently seen groups, the Five Demons, (五鬼), which in one Macau temple were known as the Five Demon Spirits (五鬼神). Their full title is \"The Five Demon Lads who change fortune” (五鬼變財). The Five are masters each of one of the five points of the compass. (The Chinese look upon the centre as the fifth direction), and each is separately known by his direction. For example, the one for the East is called the \"Eastern Chia Yi Five Demon Stellar Deity\" (東方甲乙五鬼星君) \n\nFive Demons are feared as injurious spirits who need constant propitiation. When offended, however unwittingly, they must instantly be offered a large and expensive gift, and their forgiveness sought. In one small temple in Macau they were described as the five servants of the Wealth God, and are prayed to both for \"unexpected money”, and also for a good marriage (bringing in a good dowry). \n\nThey are depicted in the Under Altar in a circle as five standing individual images in human likeness, sometimes men and sometimes women, facing inward. They have been seen once circling an oil lamp consisting of a saucer in which a wick lies floating in the oil, \n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208067, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "90\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\nand in another temple with a carved wooden coiled snake in the middle of the group. In one Macau temple four of the Five Demons have very cheeky, European children's faces. This is because the original heads of the images had been so badly burnt by candle and incense heat that the temple keeper had substituted European doll's heads.\n\nApart from the background sheet of titles and the image of the Local Wealth God and those of the Five Demons already described, there are some five other items and images which may feature in Under Altars. As with every temple disposition there does not appear to be any firm rule as to where or how each image or item should be placed within the altar.\n\nThere are many conventions, but none without the exception. The first group of items consists of wooden or stone images of living animals or creatures, the most popular being cockerels, dogs and snakes. No keeper was prepared to say why these creatures are depicted.\n\nSecondly, there are several Gods whose images are seen in Under Altars in addition to being on normal altars. The most popular and easily the most common of these is Marshal Chao, a Wealth God who is also called the \"Marshal of the Dark Altar,\" Hsuan T'an Chao Kung-ming Yuan Shuai (#). Chao's image is relatively standard, and was very common in temples throughout China. He is a ferocious general, seated astride or seated with a foot on a tiger; or standing on a tiger; with his right hand raised holding a magic whip (a knobbly-bladed sword). He was spotted on one occasion in one temple only with a long folded white strip of paper and a short strip of hessian laid across his head. We will briefly refer again to Chao. Others include Tzu Wei Hsing Chun (***), The Star God of the Planet Venus, and Hua Fen Fu Jen (✯✯✯A), the Powder Maiden (who preserves a girl's beauty). The face of the latter image is coated with cosmetic powder by young girls and she is frequently bedecked with strings of imitation pearls as offerings. The connexion between the Powder Maiden and the rest of the altar escapes explanation, and the answer from temple keepers has been that it is simply custom. There are also numerous other unidentified individual images unconnected with the altar which have been placed there by ignorant temple keepers or worshippers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208068, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n91\n\nThirdly, there is the incense pot, in dull bronze, pewter, or earthenware pottery, besides which one or more small oil lamps stand with their tiny wicks lying across the bowl of oil smudged with soot.\n\nFourth, there is a flower vase in which real or imitation flowers are placed by worshippers.\n\nFifth and finally, there may be a wooden tablet to the \"Five types of Terrain and the Five Directions”, (£) standing at the back, which will be referred to later in greater detail.\n\nThere are two deities who are so often seen in or near the Under Altar that they really must be described here. Only one is connected by title, and both may be seen just as frequently on the altar above the Under Altar, on a separate altar or, divorced completely from everything else, down one side wall of the temple. The first is the White Tiger (), who is sometimes referred to as the White Tiger of the Dark Altar (6). The second is the Green Horse.\n\nThe White Tiger\n\nHe is to be seen in about half of the Under Altars in Hong Kong and Macau. In most temples he is made of stone, though occasionally of paper or wood. Sometimes he crouches at ground level, obliquely, on the opposite side of the altar to the Local Wealth God or elsewhere in the temple on the floor and on the altar. He may even be seen in groups of twos or threes, or even more, in very rare sightings.\n\nHe is one of the most common of animal spirits in folk religion temples of all communities and, not surprisingly, is often black having been kippered in incense smoke, though one or two manage to retain their yellow and black stripes and look just as all good tigers should. White Tigers, who are not really white at all, are mostly poorly shaped lumps of stone with a tail, tiny ears and a cavernous mouth. The largest number seen together in an Under Altar was seven, but even that number did not look incongruous as one big one was surrounded by what seemed, at first glance, to be six kittens.\n\nWhite Tigers are fierce and must not be offended. Should you offend one he causes a sickness of the chest or stomach called", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208070, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n93\n\nenter the homes of the beater and her family. (Incidentally, they did the same with the \"small people\" a common man (Hsiao Jen A) who are gossips causing untold trouble. They are depicted on a black-printed charm as a row of men, and represent anyone who bears a grudge or gossips about their neighbours.)\n\nThough Ch'ao Chow and Hoklo temples have no Under Altars, keepers in temples used by these communities claim that other unspecified Hoklo and Ch'ao Chow temples do have them. In practice, however, most have a stone White Tiger, blackened with age, crouching on the floor in front of one of the secondary altars. In one Ch'ao Chow temple, what at first glance could be confusing, were two large and untarnished black and yellow striped tigers seated before the temple's Earth God. According to the watchman, they were normal tigers and not White Tigers, awaiting his orders.\n\nThe Green Horse\n\nThe second is the Green Horse (*) who occasionally has a groom though, rarely, a rider. Not surprisingly the horse actually is green, although it is possibly called so because Liu (green) is a homophone for \"lucky\". In a few temples he is colloquially referred to as the \"Money Horse\". He is to be found in several temples where there is no Under Altar, no White Tiger, and no Local Wealth God. Green Horse stand on their own four legs and are seldom made of a permanent material, though two in Macau and one in Hong Kong are made of what appears to be painted concrete about half life size. Most are coloured paper pasted over a bamboo frame, frequently decorated with tall, gold paper floral crowns and red rosettes.\n\nThe Green Horse is variously offered prayers and incense for assistance in keeping in touch with distant relatives, for bearing petitions to unapproachable Gods, for stopping quarrels and rumours and, according to some, for wealth. Some even refer to the Green Horse as the Protector of Women. Many Green Horses seen in temples are heavily ensnared or trussed with long, fine red (or on very rare occasions, white) cords bound around the forelegs. Occasionally pairs of red chopsticks are bound to the Horse by these red cords. Both the chopsticks and the cords are charms, placed there by wives who pray that their travelling or erring husbands will be faithful to them, or return immediately to them leaving the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208072, "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n95\n\nGod of Loyalty and patron of businessmen, soldiers, detectives and firemen. When represented, this stands near the entrance to his temple and is held on a short rein by a standing groom. The second is the paper horse used for carrying messages to the dead ancestors during the Yu Lan festival (15th of the seventh lunar month). These white or red horses look very similar to the Green Horse and are burnt during ancestral rituals. The third is the White Horse of the monk Hsuan Chuang, Tripitaka, who brought the Buddhist Sutras back from India in the 7th Century, and is only to be seen in one temple in Macau and not at all in Hong Kong.\n\nAn interesting observation which would appear to have no special significance, and one which surprised many Chinese temple keepers, is the sighting of the Green Horse on the altar of the maids and attendants of Chin Hua, the Goddess of Childbirth, in some thirteen temples.\n\nOfferings, Charms and Messages\n\nApart from the force feeding of the White Tigers at the festival in Spring, an offering of a large slab of cooked fatty pork is frequently placed on the Tiger's head, and sometimes several ounces of Chinese yellow wine is then poured over it. Charms, printed on yellow or red paper, are pinned to the Local Wealth God and incense and candles are burnt before the whole Under Altar. Offerings of paper money on the \"Bank of Hell\" are piled onto some Local Wealth Gods, as are paper taels of gold and silver. On occasions particular to the individual devotee and connected with calamities in their lives, he or she may place five yellow paper charms, purchased from the temple keeper, beneath each of five oil lamp saucers with glowing wicks. These, together with fresh eggs, are offered to the spirits in the Under Altar.\n\nIndividual devotees who wish to report their particular misfortune to the Disaster Spirits obtain slips of paper from the temple keeper. These are normally some four inches long and two inches wide, in either red or green, with a regular pattern of diamonds and circles cut out by folding and snipping in a special way. In a few cases, temple keepers require details of the \"disaster\" to be written on them, with dates and names of the people involved. The slips of paper are then burnt in the temple incinerator. In rare cases where devotees confuse the message papers with charms, they are", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208073, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "96 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\npasted up on the upper lintel of the altar, or across the sides, where they remain until Spring-cleaning, or just drop off with time. They are called petitions, Pang (#). Another form of charm connected with the Green Horse is a simple postcard-sized piece of rice paper, block-printed in three colours, depicting a galloping green horse and his groom, on which is the petition (****). This is only used during the lunar New Year and, too, is burnt. One temple keeper very carefully folded such a paper inside a piece of red paper, producing a package no larger than a cigarette, ready for devotees to burn. \n\nOccasionally, green and red paper cut-outs are pasted on the Under Altar, or tied to the Green Horse's nose, head or back. These are said to represent \"messages\" from humans to the Gods asking for general benefits, and passed directly on by the Green Horse without going through a spirit medium or being dispatched by incineration. These \"messages\" without inscription are entrusted to the Green Horse at all times of the year. Although borne aloft to the Gods by the Green Horse, he is never expected to bring back a reply; the general benefits doubtless will manifest themselves in time. \n\nPaper charms obtained from the temple keepers, bearing printed prayers and pictures begging the Gods for safety, protection and blessings, are thrust into the belt or hands of the Local Wealth God or again tied to the back of the Green Horse. \n\nThe slips themselves go under the generic title for red ones of \"the Nobleman\", and for green ones of “Green Horse\". These are also regarded by many as charms to ward off demonic influence and not as messages, and are therefore pasted on certain altars and figures. \n\nOccasionally street shrines, such as the one on the corner on Taipingshan Street and Pound Lane, dedicated to the local Earth God (), have a further role as an Under Altar. The roof of the shrine and wall above it are heavily coated in red and green Green Horse and Nobleman slips which normally should be burnt. Many of the slips of paper are, in this case, pasted over the top of white or black cut-out papers which represent the Mean Ones, the Hsiao Jen. These appear in two forms; as individual human figures with large ears in black paper, and as white or black cut-out slips which look like carnival masks for a man with five eyes!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208074, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n97\n\nWhen the Mean One's slips are pasted up they are promptly beaten with a shoe or slipper, and then, over them, are pasted the red and green slips representing the control exercised over them by the Green Horse and the Nobleman.\n\nOne form of the charm is a green paper cut-out horse about 24 inches long, mounted by a separate piece of red paper, cut out in the stylised form of a man. These are pasted in shrines to control the Mean Ones.\n\nOne word of warning for the iconographer. Confusion may arise in temples of Overseas Chinese communities beyond the shores of Hong Kong and Macau, particularly in Fukienese temples in SE Asia. In these there is no Under Altar as such, except in Cantonese communities in places like Kuala Lumpur. There is a separate altar which has no special title, on which there are two or more images whose general features are very similar to the Local Wealth God. They wear dunce's caps, have gaunt faces with protruding tongues and carry a fan each. In addition they carry either a chain and padlock, or a tablet permitting them to carry out an official arrest. These are the lictors of the City God whose task it is to arrest the souls of humans when the ill-fated day of death arrives, and then drag the soul before the Judges of the Underworld. Usually, one of the two images is a short man and the other, very similar to the Local Wealth God, is a tall man. The Cantonese do not appear to hold them in awe as do the Fukienese, and only depict these lictors on murals, paintings and sketches of the courts and punishments of the Underworld. Incidentally, in Yunnan, the demonic lictor of the City God was known as the \"Chicken Foot Demon\", because down to his knees he was as described, \"gaunt, with dunce's cap etc,\" but below his knees were two enormous chicken's claws. On the altar of these lictors in Fukienese temples one may see the occasional White Tiger and, very rarely indeed, a Green Horse. More frequently, the small image of Chao, the Wealth God Hsuan T'an can be seen astride or beside his tiger.\n\nOne exception to the latter is interesting. In Stone Nullah Lane in Hong Kong a larger than life image of Chao Kung-ming stands with three other deities before the main altar. Beside him is a minute tiger, the size of a kitten. The image of Chao is the only one in Hong Kong temples which is coated with red and green", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208075, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "98\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\ncharm papers, some new, but mostly faded and tattered. The temple keeper said that supplicants had stuck these on to ward off demonic influences, each being a plea to Chao to order his tiger to devour baneful demons. This image is not in the Disaster Altar but its function is exactly as though it were. According to the temple keeper it is an old image, pre-1840.\n\nThe cut-out red and green charms, called Green Horse and Nobleman, should not be confused with yet other red paper charms with cut-out holes in them, which are pasted annually on lintels of altars, temple doorways and shrines, thus reconsecrating them. These are called slips (piao) (*) and come in three sizes, small, medium and large (1-✯✯). Most of them bear a small square of gold paper pasted on them.\n\nAlthough only Taoist popular religion temples have Under Altars, there is also a Buddha who comforts “in time of calamity”, Yao Shih Fo (***) (whose full title includes the phrase “disaster” “Hsiao Tsai Yen Shou” (5* £**). He never appears in Under Altars.\n\nAnother \"Under Altar\"\n\nAnother small inset Under Altar at ground level, which is nearly always central under the main altar, is the altar to the tutelary deity of the temple, Ti Chu Fang (H). It is often called the Prosperity Hall and is unconnected with our study. It consists of a tiny open fronted \"box”, lined with red or orange paper, containing only one or two small red plaques dedicated to the tutelary deity (£* 五土龍神;護廟地主財神),(五方五土地主財神) or (前後地主 神財).\n\nIn one temple only, in Wanchai, a second altar under yet another side altar, contains a large image of the local Earth God (No2) which is normally on a side altar or beside the temple entrance. Behind him is pasted an orange paper bearing black characters describing the Earth God as the Controller of Wealth, and naming in a parallel row of characters the other major Cantonese Wealth God \"Ts'ai Po Hsing Chun\" (# $ £*) who is not represented by an image in this instance. This is a rogue disposition, doubtless ordered by a well-meaning but ignorant temple committee.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208250, "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": 289, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "Plate No. 21. The Under Altar with the local Wealth God, the Five Demons and a White Tiger.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "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": 208486, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "194 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nare in rural areas. The major Sheng Gong cult temple in Taiwan is in Taiwan City, from which place his portable image is taken by sedan chair to other cult temples in the vicinity to renew the efficacy of the images there. Evidence of the presence of his cult has been seen, too, by the writer in Sarawak, Brunei and Indonesia, in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.\n\nSheng Gong is a comparatively little used short form for the local Fujian cult of Guang Ze Zun Wang (廣澤尊王) whose full personal name was Guo Zhong-fu (郭忠福) and who is equally well known as Guo Sheng Wang Gong (郭聖王公); hence the \"Sheng Gong.\" He has some half a dozen other titles but all with a very limited local use, apart from Bao An Zun Wang (保安尊王). This is occasionally included in the title of his temple (*\n\nas compared with the more popular title of the Phoenix Mountain Temple (鳳山寺). He should not be confused with another and entirely different Fujian local cult deity, Hui Ze Zun Wang(惠澤尊王)\n\nThe Saintly Guo's image is not difficult to recognise as it has certain characteristics which, whilst not individually unique, together identify him at a glance. He has a youthful, clean-shaven face; is seated dressed in robes over armour with his right foot raised parallel to the ground, pointing towards his left leg at knee height. His face is a dark red and he has protruding round eyes.\n\nThere are two images of the Saintly Guo in the one temple in North Point, Hong Kong. One is the main, large image swathed in embroidered robes donated by devotees, and the other is a small wooden carving on the main altar before and between Guo and his consort. Neither were easy to photograph, and therefore I have gone through some old photographs, the best of which is to be seen at illustration at the back of this volume.* In this photograph Guo is the main deity on the altar of a temple in Seremban, West Malaysia, flanked by two other images of another Fujian local cult, Fa Zhu Gong (法主公). Guo is prayed to for the usual blessings though in certain temples he is specifically looked upon as a healer of the sick, a protector of children and as a wealth god for businessmen. He is also the patron of those who bear the same surname as himself.\n\n* Plate 22.\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208771, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n201 \n\nIt would seem incongruous that Na T'o, a Muslim who would abhor idolatry, should be venerated by the Chinese and it would be interesting to know what the Malays themselves would think of such a practice; that is of course, assuming that they even know of his existence. The Chinese, however, see no incongruity in having a Muslim on their altar, and in some areas, particularly around Kluang, he is especially treated with the respect and constraints due to another religion. As a Muslim, he is never disturbed on a Friday and never offered pork. \n\nThe only other case so far noted of a Muslim appearing on a Chinese altar was heard from a Chinese from Sian who recalled a deity in North China, the Wei Wei Ts'ai Shen (✯✯1⁄2§i†), said to be the Mohammedan god of wealth, depicted dressed in a Tibetan high-crowned cap. Wei Wei, he thought, was probably derived from the Arabic, and, it was claimed that Muslim Chinese offered beef at his altar. Wei Wei however, is possibly a local variant of Hui Hui, the usual Chinese term for \"Moslem”. \n\nThe second cult is that of Miss Lin (✯✯✯) whose image is to be seen on Chinese temple altars only in Southern Thailand. Her legend explains all. Left alone by the death of her parents in her home village near Ch'aochou in Eastern Kwangtung province of South China, she followed her only living relative, her brother, down to a village near Songkla in the far south of Thailand where he worked in the fields. When she arrived she found to her disgust that her brother was just about to marry a Muslim girl and be converted to Islam. She attempted without avail to persuade him not to do either. A Chinese god carver in Bangkok added, with disgust, he even gave up eating pork! \n\nThe sister knew she could not live with her brother and his wife and in a desperate moment threw herself into the river Patani and drowned herself. The brother, despite being filled with remorse, to demonstrate that he, as a convert, was more devout than born believer, went ahead with his plan to build a mosque and even went as far as to bury his sister beside the site chosen for it. As the last brick was laid lightning struck and destroyed the mosque without harming the sister's grave. However, the brother refused to believe that it was divine retribution for his denial of his parent's gods. Twice more he built, and twice more lightning struck. Only then did he accept the message and renounce Islam. Realizing that his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211650, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "40\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh contained the character revealing where he had originated from. An altar in a converted shophouse temple in the suburbs of Taichung bore the title 'Chinmen Su Fu San Wang Yeh'. The temple keeper's family, also named Su, had brought the image over from Quemoy (Chinmen island) off Amoy.\n\nAn example of the many idiosyncrasies involving the worship of the surnamed Wang Yeh can be observed in the Ma Temple in Ssu Hu village in Yunlin county where the Ch'en family has worshipped Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui+ for many generations. The temple was built there with Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui as the major deity but following an epidemic Ma Fu Ch'ien SuiT, the ancestral deity of the local Ts'ao# family became the major deity on the altar. He is regarded as the senior of the two Wang Yeh. According to local legend, during a virulent epidemic Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui gathered together Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, Ta Sheng Yeh (Monkey god), the Third Prince (T’aitzu Yeh), Kuan Yu (the red-faced god of loyalty), and T'ien Shang Shengmu (The Holy Mother of Heaven better known as T'ien Hou) and together they stopped the epidemic. In their gratitude the locals extended the temple to honour them and, according to the temple keeper, the whole area has been peaceful and harmonious ever since. Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, the senior Pestilence deity in the group, is portrayed as a multi-armed deity, with a multi-coloured striped face sitting on a throne. It is very Hindu in its appearance.\n\nIn Hsin Ying near Tainan a main deity known as Han Lao Yeh##Zm but better known colloquially as Han Ch’ien Sui### was discussed by a number of villagers. In consensus they decided he was not a Wang Yeh despite being a protective deity who was particularly revered for the maintenance of good health. They were unable to identify Han but recalled that he had been a civil official in Fukien whose image had been brought over to Taiwan long after he had been deified.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh generally occupy the main altar of the temple in which they reside. The main deity will occupy the centre spot with the junior Wang Yeh in lesser positions beside him. However, in a number of temples they can also be seen in a row on the altar table before the main altar which can be dedicated to another, entirely unconnected deity. This would seem to be the temple staff taking advantage of the custom of borrowing a Wang Yeh image to take home for private reverence by the sick, who leave a donation in the temple for the service. Pestilence Wang Yeh images are frequently carried home from temples", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211947, "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": 362, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "337\n\nThe Jau and Wong Temple also used to house spirit tablets to \"heroes\". The tablets (three in total, without names) were moved to the Yau-Leun Tong from the side altar in the temple about 50 years ago because they were siu-yan (“small people”), and it was unseemly to house them in the same temple as the two great men (daai-yan). As mentioned before, villagers agreed that the “heroes” were those who had died in fighting (da-saat) between Kam Tin and its enemies.\n\nKam Tin has quite a number of other temples. There are the Man-Cheung Temple and Hung-Sing Temple in Shui Tau, and the Tin-Hau Temple in Shui Mei. Many of the other villages, e.g. Kam Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen, and Wing Lung Wai, which do not have “standard” temples, have a san-teng, a house with an altar for a spirit tablet for about ten popular temple gods. The gods of some of the vanished temples, which include a Yeung-Hau Temple and a Bou-Dak Chi in Shui Mei, and the Hung-Fan Taam Temple of Shui Tau, are still worshipped in the jiu festival, as are the gods of two nunneries, in Shui Mei and Tai Hong Wai respectively, which no longer exist.\n\nThese temples and nunneries hold tablets or images of some 20 different gods, if we are to include the Earth God for temples, and Wai-To for Buddhist establishments. The other 18 include the popular temple gods Yeung-Hau, Tin-Hau, Bak-Dai, Man-Cheung, Gwun-Yam, Gwaan-Dai, Hung-Sing, the God of Wealth, Gam-Fa, Taai-Seui, the Dragon King, and the Buddha. The Bou-Dak Chi housed spirit tablets for Jau and Wong. There is not much information about this other temple dedicated to Jau and Wong, but it was worshipped probably only by the villagers of Shui Tau, where it was situated.\n\nFui-Sing, and Fa-Gung Fa-Mou are probably respectively responsible for success in imperial examinations and the health of children. Hoi-Saan Suk-Lou is a title found in some other local temples as well, and represents the earliest settlers of the place. Hong-Wong is a title that I have not seen elsewhere in the New Territories.\n\nThe titles of localized gods found in most of the Kam Tin villages include the God of Earth and Grain, the Water God of wells, and the Earth God for the gates of the walled villages. There are, in some of the villages, a Tree God and Earth Gods for bridges and for the gate to a complex of houses. In addition, there are Ngau-Wong and Pun-Gu,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212096, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "15\n\ndeities worshipped in the local temples, a Chinese author touches on one important aspect of these events:\n\n**In raising the funds they [the organizers] talk about their god, what he did in the past and what he still means to the people. The theatricals dramatize the divine history. The idol in the temple characterizes him. The tablets and the scrolls in the temple and the opera matshed] call to mind his traits and his relation to the people.**25\n\nIt was the practice on these occasions to prepare and distribute festival brochures which contain such information. This was a tradition that was followed in some of the more popular Tsuen Wan temples.\n\n(c) The Surroundings\n\nAs if the process of indoctrination was not already thorough, the decoration of the temples and the better class of houses, shops and ancestral halls provided a milieu in which cultural influences were strong and could make an impression on youthful minds. Although a small place, Tsuen Wan District had its share of old buildings (and some not so old, dating from as late as the 1920s and 1930s) whose walls were decorated with eaves-paintings in the traditional style. Besides depicting the usual auspicious symbols for long life, good fortune, advancement, wealth and posterity, and the flowers and animals with similar associations, they also carried paintings of well-known stories and persons known to history or from the opera. Verses from T'ang poetry were also commonly included.29 Obviously, the better class of local buildings were not to be regarded as complete without this impressive cultural array.\n\n(d) The Lion and Unicorn Dance Teams\n\n30\n\nBesides what was taught in the rural schoolroom and learned outside its doors, one of the most powerful influences upon young village males was undoubtedly exercised through their training in the village lion or unicorn dance team. In Tsuen Wan and the other settlements of the Hong Kong region, these teams were at the heart of village ceremony. On social, political or religious occasions, they were the personification of the village's collective respect for important visitors and the means of marking the main events in the social life of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212737, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "31\n\nA native of China generally, whose chief characteristics are: sobriety, frugality, and industriousness; having a burning desire for male offspring, an insatiable appetite for public notoriety, and a terrible affinity for lucre; a being who is perfectly willing at all times, and in all places, to worship the God of Wealth, Ts'ai Shen, or any other particular god or deity, as well as all the known and “unknown\" gods and his own ancestors, as far back as he, or somebody else, may be able to have traced them, but more especially any of them who may have acquired wealth or fame in any age.\n\nPatronage and Name Dropping, and Incidental Anecdotes\n\nHe appears never to have missed an opportunity throughout his long life in China to pay his respects by calling on the local county, provincial and even national mandarins. A number of these officials were referred to thereafter on more than one occasion as 'friends' or 'officials with whom [Mesny] had conferred.' The one he most prided himself on was his 'intimacy' with the Chinese senior statesman, Li Hung-chang, by whom he would appear to have been tolerated, but only just, though with the normal Chinese courtesies.\n\nMesny knew the importance of patronage and name-dropping, especially in China: this we can see from the two and a quarter pages he devoted in one of his Miscellanies to the momentary meeting with a Manchu hereditary prince; his obituary of Tso, etc. He was as obsessed with his affiliation and rapport with the Chinese as he was about females, and at every possible opportunity he managed to name-drop and rub home his kindred feeling for the Chinese together with descriptions of their reciprocation in kind. Mesny refers with pride on a number of occasions to Chinese 'sworn brothers.' He disclosed these individually either without ever referring to them again or in some instances he simply mentioned their names in passing during descriptions of his journeys. One such blood brother was Chang Kuang-chun (or -chin) who in about 1874 was an Expectant ta-t'ai of Szechuan, and a Metropolitan literary graduate [Chin-shih] of the Tao Kuang reign. Another was Chang Ping-tang, the Military Secretary to the C-in-C of the Szechuan Force. Elsewhere in the Miscellany he claimed to have two Chinese sworn brothers, one a literary and the other a military undergraduate whom he had met whilst travelling in a provincial town in Kueichou. He met", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213837, "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": 189, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "162\n\nbeen built in 1765. Since its establishment, the building has been renovated several times, in 1878, 1910, 1962, and 1978.7 The first recorded reconstruction, that is the one in 1910, is evident on the commemorative tablet installed on the interior wall of the temple. It is fortunate that the architecture through all these ages has retained its original style and character,\n\nThe temple, which can be considered a well-endowed and elaborate structure for its time, consists of three halls. In the main hall, a wooden idol of Houwang is installed at a shrine, covered with a canopy with the title \"Imperial Bestowed Loyal and Brave Marquis Yang\" (JAKE) written on each side. Clay statues of a civil official and a military official stand on the left and the right, respectively, as attendants to the local god. Enshrined in the side hall on the left are three spirit tablets. The one in the middle is for the pioneer villagers who established the temple; the one on the left is for those who donated the construction fee; the one on the right is for the men in charge of the reconstruction. In the side hall on the right, secondary divinities, such as mountain gods and earth gods, are enshrined. (See the floor plan of the temple.)\n\nThe facade of the temple is decorated by murals of scenes on walls and doors. On the left and right tips of the roof, there are streaked clay decorations in three dimensions. Figures of the martial arts, embellished with coloured glaze, are installed on the central ridge of the roof. It is recorded that these ceramic figures, of high quality workmanship, were manufactured at the well-known Shekwan kilns in 1910. In terms of structure and design, the Houwang Temple can be considered architecture of characteristic style. If the construction of a temple reflects the wealth of a community, Tung Chung's Houwang Temple seems to indicate that people there fared quite well before the locale declined into a periphery along with the shift of Hong Kong's economic core.\n\nIt is also surmised that a village coalition was being formed at the time of the construction of the Houwang Temple. As hundreds of immigrants moved into the New Territories after the \"Coastal Evacuation\" order in the early Ch'ing had been abolished, cult worship might have contributed to social integration and community building. Tung Chung's Houwang Temple, as mentioned above, is believed to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213840, "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "165\n\n55\n\nrepresentatives of the rocket associations bid for the rockets Physical violence is avoided, but competition remains keen among bidders who strive to show superiority over each other in terms of wealth and power' To decide who in the winning group can take the representation of the god home, another ceremony should be held whereby the temple keeper, after placing on the temple altar a list of members of the rocket association and reciting a “song to invite the god\" (#), casts the divining blocks thrice for each member The winner is he who passes the divination three times in a row.\n\n1\n\n50\n\nIn addition to the representative associations from villages such as Mok Ka's Yu-ch'ing tang W, upper Ling Per's Ch'un-ying t'ang #*, Ngau Au's Ch`un-lu t’ang San Tau's Ch'un-ch'ing tang # , and so on, other units such as social clubs and recreational societies also form their own rocket associations. According to Hayes's observation in the 1960s of the concomitant celebration of the Houwang feast day and the reopening of the Houwang Temple after the first major repair in 1909, among the rocket associations, two were fishermen's groups, (one from Tung Chung and the other from Tai O) and one was formed by the Seamen's Union from Hong Kong which came to Tung Chung for the festival for many years.\" Many native Tung Chung seamen had joined the union. By forming the associations and attending the festival, members of the same profession can also exchange information and news of their trade. In this sense, the festival functions tend to promote solidarity not only among villagers, but also among colleagues.\n\nFor local residents of different surnames and various social backgrounds, the Houwang worship and its all-pervasive influence provide them with the social bond of union and the ideology of territory identity, through which the Tung Chung community seems to have become a culturally self-sufficient entity Even the fishermen settled in the district seldom visit the Empress of Heaven Temple at Chak Lap Kok or Ma Wan. Like other Tung Chung villagers, they pay homage mainly to the Houwang, the principal deity of the locale, and participate quite actively in the “bid-for-rockets” contest during the annual feast day festival.\n\nThe Houwang's Birthday celebration also provides the local community with an opportunity for contact with the outside world.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213845, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "170\n\nIn the area surrounding the Houwang Temple, colourful embroidered banners and decorated archways are erected. Before the formal feast day, i.e., the 16th of the eighth lunar month, nuns from Tei Tong Tsai are invited to pray for a successful festival by reciting Buddhist scriptures and burning paper cloth. To raise funds for the ever-expanding scale of the celebration, a party is held on the 17th, where rocket association representatives come to bid for sacred relics, i.e., items such as idols, vases, ornaments, etc. blessed by the deity. This is another opportunity, in addition to the bidding for rockets, for better-off villagers to boast of their wealth.\n\n74\n\nIn recent years, expenses for the festival have increased to around HK$500,000, including $100,000 or more for building the matshed and $200,000 or more for hiring opera troupes. Participating rocket associations increased from about five in the 1960s to more than fifteen in recent years. Showing off their financial capacity, some nouveaux riches since the War have become festival sponsors. They are settlers in Ma Wan Chung, which replaced Tung Chung Street as the local business centre, after a pier was built in the village vicinity in 1958 and a road leading to the pier was constructed in the 1960s. With improvements in water and electricity supply, medical services, etc., two-storey new houses were built in the pier area of Ma Wan Chung, changing the physical and social landscape of Tung Chung.5\n\nWhen Tung Chung Street's economic status was taken over by Ma Wan Chung, the Neighbourhood Association became obsolete and a new body emerged, under the name of the Preparatory Committee for the Houwang's Birthday Festival. The Committee consists of more than ten members, including village representatives and volunteers.76 With chairman, vice-chairman, and treasurer, this organization seems to be a modernized one, though people with economic power—shopowners in the area of Ma Wan Chung this time—continue to hold important positions. Even the location of the bulletin, recording the list of money donors in support of the god's feast day celebration, has changed from the exterior wall of the Yao-ho Store on Tung Chung Street to that of the Shun-ch'ang Store at Ma Wan Chung.\n\nWorth noticing is the effect of demographic change in Tung Chung since the 1950s. A great number of new immigrants moved in and settled in the district, filling the gap left by the male population, who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213847, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "172\n\nmeans of legitimizing their permanent residency in the district and increasing their local influence and power. When some seamen returned home, after foreign steamships had significantly reduced the recruitment of sailors from Hong Kong in the 1950s, they had become so unfamiliar with local affairs, as a result of their long leave from home, that even if they were elected village representatives on the Tung Chung's Rural Committee established in 1950 under government auspices, they served mainly as liaison men. Newer settlers at Ma Wan Chung, with their wealth and their leading role in organizing activities to commemorate the Houwang's feast day festival, have actually been among the leading local social élites, though not necessarily holding formal official positions.\n\nAdaptability and Tenacity: The Tradition of the Houwang Worship\n\nIn effect, the Houwang worship transcends blood ties and bridges the gap between old and new settlers, and thus functions to maintain a strong village coalition in Tung Chung. As a multi-lineage community, Tung Chung can be used as a case to support Judith Strauch's argument that economic and ritual cooperation and overarching unity, implicit in shared \"native place,\" instead of constant internal conflict and all-round uneasiness, can prevail in a mix-surname settlement.** It also fits Burton Pasternak's model of “villages in which families of different surnames joined forces and played down agnatic differences for the sake of survival.\"84\n\nIt is indeed in the villagers' interest to accept newcomers to the community, in order to make up for shortages of material and human resources.\n\nThis receptive and inclusive feature of local culture also grew out of a universal cult centering around the village coalition temple. While ancestor worship is only an individual or family/lineage activity and the worship of the earth god and Hsuan-t'an is usually on an individual or village basis, religious and social rituals in honour of the Houwang involve mass participation by the territorial community and work to renew collective consciousness of local identity repeatedly and systematically. During the time when the chino was held in the area, the Houwang as the principal local deity also played a role in that large-scale communal festival. The Houwang worship continued to dominate local religious life, and was even promoted by concentrating\n\n|\n\n|", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214821, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 236, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "202\n\nTo this day, services for the departed, whether as newly-deceased souls or as wandering spirits, command the greater part of the time of practitioners from the two religions. Apart from the varied religious services carried out in the homes of the deceased, or in the temples and monasteries where similar rites were held for the departed, both Buddhists and Taoists are prominent in the rituals carried out in public places at the Hungry Ghost Festival.23 This, the most important ritualistic pacification of wandering souls and spirits during the lunar year, is still performed throughout Hong Kong on behalf of the general public by priests of the two religions, hired by local committees and associations.\n\nWhat People Want: Individual Expectations from Acts of Worship\n\nIn approaching the gods, whether in the temples and monasteries, or at the earth god shrines on the street or in the fields, the worshippers had specific requirements in view. Then as now, worshipping itself was principally devoted to obtaining divine assistance in time of trouble or to attain the object of one's desire or supplication. These usually concerned health and wealth, as well as general preservation from all ills, for oneself and for family members, deceased as well as living. There was also the need to obtain protection (because of their great potential for harm) from the general body of those many departed souls without living male descendants to care for them.\n\nUnlike the ritual services, worshipping was not carried out with the help of intermediaries from the two religions. It is a personal act, usually conducted by the individual before the altars in temples, monasteries or nunneries, or at the tombs of deceased family members and ancestors at certain fixed times of the lunar year.\n\nAs Archdeacon Moule says - and it bears repeating because it is so basic to an understanding of how Chinese people think and act - the prayers of the worshippers one sees in the temples are being \"addressed to images representing deities of living and present power.\n\n24 In Hong Kong, a visit to a large city temple like the Wong Tai Sin Temple in New Kowloon at a major festival leaves one in no doubt that the people believe in the ability of the god to grant their requests. Nor is satisfaction kept to oneself. The word soon gets around, and since the worship", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215070, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 166, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "123\n\nscroll stands in the centre and is flanked by two images each with his right arm raised holding a bell. The faces are one red and one black, and the pair are known as the Red Taisui and the Black Taisui, all three functioning as one deity.\n\nA six-armed image of Taisui in the side hall of the Penang City God temple shares the main altar with Guan Yin and the Great Saint [Qitian Da Sheng - though better known as the Monkey God]. In Cholon, Saigon, three separate deities are portrayed on one altar, each with Taisui added to his title. These are Ziwei Xingjun, Wenchang and Xuantan, the first being a stellar deity whose likeness is pasted or nailed to doors as a popular charm to ward off demonic attack, the second is the God of Literature and the third, a Wealth God. This nomenclature would appear to be a local whim, not seen nor heard of elsewhere.\n\nOnly in very few instances does Taisui have any assistants. Several temple keepers in Taiwan and Singapore explained that Taisui, like so many protective deities, has Five Demon Armies under his command. These he despatches to cope with recalcitrant humans who fail to honour Taisui properly or who have insulted him in any way. When humans come under any form of demonic attack the cause and source of the attack is usually revealed to them by mediums, who are then in a position to advise the individual what should be done to counter and ward off the evil effects, particularly so when the attack is mounted by tamed demons under the control of a deity, Taisui. They advise the human to immediately propitiate him and request him to call off his demonic forces.\n\nIn several novels Taisui is described as having ten assistants the last four being the gods of the year, the month, the day and the hour. All were described in the Deification of the Gods as having been slain at the famous battle between the good and evil forces at Wan Xian Chen and have been named as:\n\nLi Bing\n\n李丙\n\nHuang Chengyi\n\n黃丞乙\n\nZhou Deng\n\n周登\n\nLiu Hong\n\n劉洪\n\nIn a temple in Kalgan, a city known today as Zhangjiakou in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, Yin Jiao's second brother, Yin", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215112, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 208, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "165\n\nIn 755, during the revolt of An Lushan, Guo helped defend the capital, and in 760 he was despatched to recover territory from Central Asian barbarians and finally, three years after the Turfans [Uighurs] had captured the capital, Guo raised an army and drove them out, more by cunning than military force. The disasters which broke out during the declining years of the Tang Ming Huang emperor were suppressed chiefly by the vigour and determination with which Guo wrested province after province from the hands of the insurgents. He spent a considerable part of his life in warfare and was uniformly successful.\n\nHis images in temples in Northern and Central China usually portrayed him as an old mandarin, with a parted beard, both halves held separately in each of his hands, and with a tiered hat. Occasionally his image depicted him as an old man, sitting, with a long white beard and a white robe, carrying a ruyi sceptre engraved with the four characters for 'Everything shall be as You Desire'. According to one sect, the Jin Dan H., Guo is said to have founded the sect in collaboration with Lü Dongbin, the doctor of renown and one of the Eight Immortals. His image on altars in Sichuan was referred to as Cifu Tianguan14 where he was regarded as a God of Wealth.\n\nNo images of Guo have been noted on temple altars in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau or South-east Asia, though a temple in Haikang in Tainan county bears the hall title of Fenyang Dian and contains on its main altar not an image of him but one of a local provincial cult deity, Guangze Zunwang, the patron of the Guo clan.\n\nBoth Mesny and Timothy RichardR claim that Guo Ziyi was a follower of Nestorian Christianity, Mesny even claiming that Guo's name was carved on the famous Nestorian tablet at Xi'an.\n\nWe move on to images of the two major deified heroes of the era on temple altars who have had their historic figures embellished by tea-house story-tellers down the centuries include:\n\nZhang Xun✯ and Xu Yuan,F are heroes of renown and unique deities whose images have been seen on temple altars in Zhejiang, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia [Photographs 6 and 7]. Both are protective deities worshipped particularly by the southern Fukienese, both within Fujian province and in southern Fukienese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215348, "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-2001", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "73\n\nseem to be in no way connected with the wife and mother of the Tang dynasty generals.\n\nAlthough her image is popular in South-east Asia where it is to be found as the main deity on secondary altars in both Chaozhou and Hainanese temples, it has also been noted in Taiwan, and in Hong Kong in four temples and a further one in Macau. She is the main deity in one Hong Kong temple, and the main deity on secondary altars in the other three and in Macau.\n\nShe is accompanied in many instances by two anonymous aides or maids, though in a Hainanese temple in Malate in Manila they are known as Li Laoxian Gu #t, and in Medan in Sumatra in a Hainanese temple by two guardian generals, General of the Iron Ox, Tieniu Jiangjun and the General of the Bronze Ox, Tongniu Jiangjun. [see below 6 a]\n\nWeng Zhong is yet another deity regarded by Hainanese as uniquely theirs even though his image was noted in several places across central China during the late 19th century. Weng Zhong lived during the Tang and is only known for one remarkable incident. He was suddenly showered with gold. He was born in Gansu province and was a poverty-stricken scholar who lived alone - however, his windfall, the cause of which has never been explained, has led him to be regarded by some devotees to revere him as a God of Wealth. His image has been seen in a temple near Haikou in northern Hainan, simply portraying him as a scholar, standing, dressed in his robes and holding a tablet in both hands before his chest. His full name was Weng Zhongru 翁仲儒.\n\n6: Images of Aides to deities\n\na] As we have seen the Iron Ox General, Tie’niu Jiangjun 铁牛将军 is a tamed demonic spirit and guardian of the major deity Lishan Shengmu. He has only been noted once, paired with her other tamed demonic spirit guardian, the Bronze Ox General, Tongniu Jiangjun 銅牛将军, on the main altar in a specifically Hainanese community temple in Jalan Rindu in Singapore, now long pulled down for urban development. This may, of course, be an entirely Chaozhou cult but revered also by the Hainanese devotees of the local community and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]