[ { "id": 206627, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES: VARIATIONS ON A THEME\n\n(With special reference to overseas Chinese communities in South East Asia)\n\nKEITH STEVENS*\n\nIndividual Chinese gods are worshipped universally throughout all Chinese communities and areas, or are worshipped only within limited areas such as a village or linked villages. Some are peculiar to linguistic groups such as the Shanghainese or the Cantonese. Three gods from the immense Chinese pantheon have been chosen and their legends, recognition features, the reason for their worship and where possible the area in which they were or still are worshipped have been described in detail below.\n\nThe first deity, worshipped in practically all Chinese communities, is General Yin Ch'iao (**太岁**) more frequently referred to as T'ai Sui (**太岁**). The second, Fa Chu Kung (**法主公**), is a deity to be found only within two or three localised communities in Fukien province and amongst overseas Chinese from these communities. However, he is also to be found in a few temples of other overseas Chinese communities who have adopted him to take advantage of his power. The third deity is Cheng Ho (**郑和**), the explorer of the 15th Century who is worshipped only by limited communities of overseas Chinese in areas where Cheng Ho's fleet called during his explorations.\n\nThese three have been chosen because they are good examples of three different types of Chinese deities. The first, T'ai Sui, is a\n\n* Major Stevens is a serving officer at present with the Ministry of Defence. He has been employed in South East Asia and the Far East and has travelled extensively among the Chinese communities of the region (but of necessity outside China) in his search for images of Chinese gods. The value of his article lies in bringing together material from, as he says, 'two and a half thousand temples' in the region, showing the great variety of images in their various forms and continued devotion to the pantheon of gods. I am glad to have this opportunity of publishing it in the Journal. No attempt has been made to impose a uniform romanization which is here given as presented by the author from the various works consulted, and as in the different dialect forms he encountered in the course of his enquiries. Nor have I changed the terms \"god-shop\" and \"god-carver\" used by Major Stevens because they are colourful, and therefore appropriate to the subject. Ed.\n\nPlates 15-29 illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206644, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "186\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nfeatures, but as with all Chinese images there are local variations of which two major ones observed have been:\n\na. A shiny black Fa Chu Kung with six arms and standing barefoot, holding in his six arms:\n\n(1) a sword held in each of three of them,\n\n(2) a scimitar in one,\n\n(3) a magic ring in one (this is identical to the bracelet of San T'ai Tzu),\n\n(4) the sixth has a hand making the magical sign described above.\n\nHe is dressed in flowing golden robes, and has a small snake entwined around the arm with the hand making the magical sign. (Plate 25)\n\nb. A Ch'ao Chow style carving of Fa Chu Kung has two pillars protruding from the base on either side of his body reaching to his waist height, making two \"side table\" tops on either side of him. On one side, on the \"table top\", stands a vase and on the other stands a bowl. Otherwise he is exactly as described in the basic description.\n\nThe images most likely to be confused with Fa Chu Kung are those of his two brothers which apart from the colour of their faces are identical to his. They have never been observed on an altar without him.* Also possibly confused with Fa Chu Kung is T'ai P'ao or Sha Ho Shang who is described at the end of this article.\n\nTitles\n\nFa Chu Kung is known by various names or titles than by his best known title of Fa Chu Kung. According to Fukien temple keepers, Fa Chu Kung means the Controlling Duke. There is, however, a Buddhist term, Fa Chu, for the Lord of the Dharma, which is the Buddha himself. It is unlikely that this is the origin of Fa Chu Kung's title, even though several informants have suggested that, as he is black, he was an Indian and was formerly a trader from India. The various titles and names by which he is referred to, are:\n\na. Fa Chu Sheng Chün 法主聖君\n\nTitle given in Mutseh near Taipei to the group of the three brothers, all to be seen on one\n\n* See Plate 26. A Fukienese god-carver's sketch of Fa Chu Kung is at Plate 27.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206650, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "192\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nof insufficient fire wood, he stuck his foot in the stove, and the flame shot up cooking the food in but a few moments. The second is no less than Li T'ieh Kuai (*), one of the Eight Immortals. One of the stories told about him is that, when he was young and very poor, his mother ordered him to go into the hills every day to collect wood but he was never able to collect more than sufficient for one day. When it rained they had none. His aunt cursed him and said they would use his legs as fuel. Now Li T'ieh Kuai had learnt some tricks from the Immortals in the hills and stuck his foot into the fire which blazed up much more brightly. His aunt shouted that she was only joking and pulled his foot from the fire. Because of this the bottom part of his leg fell off and became poisoned. The story ends by his aunt using the burnt-off leg to bank up the cinders!\n\nConclusion\n\nAlthough this Fukienese local deity is mostly to be seen, as is to be expected, in those areas of Taiwan and South East Asia where Fukienese immigrants from An Ch'i, Ying Ch'üan and the immediate surrounding areas are to be found, he is also to be found in Hainanese, Ch'aochow and Cantonese temples in South East Asia; where presumably this cult has been adopted by the other immigrant groups who wished to take advantage of his power.\n\nTai Pao(*)\n\nOne image likely to be confused with Fa Chu Kung is Tai Pao. Tai Pao is the monk Sha (*) who usually wears a necklet or waistband of skulls, but in many temples these have been lost and the black, unkempt figure of Tai Pao at first glance can easily be confused with Fa Chu Kung.\n\nTHE CULT OF THE EUNUCH ADMIRAL CHENG HO\n\nA deified hero and a Taoist Saint\n\nBackground\n\nThe intercourse between China and the West under the widespread rule of the Mongols lapsed with their withdrawal into Central Asia. The Ming dynasty emperor Yung Lo made great efforts to re-open trade routes and to expand the much diminished foreign trade by despatching between the years 1405 and 1431 A.D. seven major expeditions to the Southern Seas, commanded by eunuchs", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206925, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "Plate XI. Hai Jui on a Teochew altar in Singapore, January 1970.\n\n(By courtesy of Major Keith Stevens)\n\nPlate XII. Tour to Thailand, February 1973; some of the members\n\ntaking part.\n\nFrom left to right: Mr. H. M. Weinrebe, Mr. D. M. Goodbody, Miss R. E. Carlson, Miss P. I. Young, Mr. R. O'Hara, Mrs. M. O'Hara, Mr. Michael Smithies (tour leader and Hon. Secretary), Miss Moira Knowles (Hon. Secretary from April 1973), Mr. J. S. Anderson, Mrs. W. C. Mao, Dr. P. W. C. Mao, Mr. B. S. McElney, Mr. Hownam-Meek, Mrs. K. Kesterton, Mrs. Hownam-Meek. Not in photograph: Mrs. L. H. Evans, Mr. R. J. Faulkner, Mr. A. H. Forsyth, Mrs. B. Laufer, Miss Lim Laye Tin.\n\n(Photograph by courtesy of C.P.A.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207003, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "THE CRAFT OF GOD CARVING IN SINGAPORE\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS*\n\nIn my research into Chinese iconography I made a considerable nuisance of myself in three particular two-storey shophouses in the middle of Singapore's Hokkien (Fukienese) area (see plate 1), by questioning the god carvers' every action during the process of carving and repairing images of Chinese gods.\n\nIn Singapore three families are in partial competition, yet from their full order books business would appear to be thriving. Two of the families are Hokkien originating from near Foochow and Amoy respectively and the third is Teochew (Ch'ao chou) from Swatow, all being second or third generation Singaporeans who have never visited their homeland. Into these shophouses are crowded the unmarried longterm employees in addition to the families themselves, notably the apprentices who sleep on campbeds in the shop and eat en famille. One master carver bewailed the shortage of apprentices who in this age of affluence were unwilling to undertake a long and poorly paid apprenticeship.\n\nI have always referred to these craftsmen as god carvers and their shops as godshops. My article \"Three Deities\" in this Journal in 1972 provoked the editorial comment that the term was colourful and as such would be left unedited. My terminology is a far cry from the jargon of the anthropologist and it is my intention to describe, in my own terms, the production of gods in one of these godshops.\n\nThese godshops are ten foot square or ten by twenty foot work-spaces on the ground floor of the shophouses. Here new gods are carved and painted and the old repaired, not only for the island of Singapore but also for places as far north as Thailand and Cambodia, as far east as Borneo and Brunei and as far south as Java. This group of godcarvers is unique in being the only Fukienese and Ch'ao chou specialist carvers still plying their trade save for a few\n\n* Major Stevens' other contributions on the interesting subject of Chinese gods in South-east Asia and Taiwan appeared in Vols. 12-13 of this Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207201, "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": 272, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "Plate 1. God shops in Club Street, Singapore, 1969.\n\n(Plates 1-27 by courtesy of Major Keith Stevens).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208062, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS (下壇)\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nThe first thing to be seen on entering Chinese temples in Hong Kong and Macau, even those in which a murky half-light obscures the view, is the main altar in the middle of the far end of the main hall. What is rarely seen however, even after a stroll around, is the “Altar at which prayers are offered to avert calamities” (避災壇). This is usually an even dingier ground-level alcove inside the back of which is pasted a large green sheet of paper bearing the titles in white, of five or seven spirits all of whom need placating or propitiating as needs arise. The altar often bears the less colourful titles of the \"Under Altar\" (下壇), the \"Yin and Yang Hall\" (陰陽堂), and in very rare instances, more so in Macau than in Hong Kong, the \"Five Demon Altar\" (五鬼壇).\n\nUnder Altars, only to be found in Cantonese, Hakka and Boat People's Taoist folk religion temples and never in Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, are usually situated under or between the main and secondary altars at ground level. They consist of a wooden or stone open-fronted \"box\" about three to four feet high, three feet wide and two feet six deep and are illuminated, if one can use such a term, by a 15 watt dark red electric bulb. In five temples in Hong Kong and Macau the Under Altar was in a corner beside the main altar, but without any top or covering. In one or two temples such altars may be found, again at ground level (this seems to be the one almost inflexible requirement) but without a top, against the side wall about half way down the main hall facing the centre, or alone in a separate side hall.\n\nThere are several different reasons given why people pray at these altars. The most common is the wish to avert ill-fortune of any form and not just major disasters, as the title of the altar “Calamity\" (災) suggests. An elderly lady pointing at one devotee said that he had just told her that he had placed a stick of incense before the Under Altar to avert losses at the races on the morrow. Another, she said, thought her child was sickening for something, and had placed ten cents before the White Tiger image and said a brief word to the deity asking for the illness to be averted.\n\nPlates 20 - 31 at end of this volume illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208334, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "42\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nIn addition there were scraps of cotton, threads, one or two grains of rice, a tiny sac of cotton cloth stuffed with more cotton and several beads and slivers of mica. There were also two dried sea-horses* in the image dedicated in 1871 though there were no signs of any other remains. The strips of paper are not all that usual and are rarely found in Southern Chinese images. Precis translations of the six strips of paper are included later in this note.\n\nThe papers show that five of the seven images were dedicated and placed on altars in the County of Wu Kang (A) in South East Hunan, one hundred miles due north of Kweilin and three hundred and seventy-five miles NNW of Hong Kong, near the Hunanese boundaries with its neighbouring provinces of Kwangsi and Kweichow. The west and south-west of Hunan were not easily accessible until the 1930's due to the dangerous rapids in the upper reaches of the plentiful rivers. Then a system of highways opened up the area. Prior to that, apart from the occasional traveller, traders and, of course, the petty officials sent to such \"punishment\" posts, all that was known of the area came from tales passed on from mouth to mouth. Wu Kang is in rising country, on the edge of an area marked on old maps as the lands of the Thai minority peoples, the Ko Lao (z) and another larger minority people, the Miao (δ). The other two images come from Chi An prefecture () in Kiangsi province, some two hundred and eighty miles due east of Wu Kang. Chi An, an old walled city and a major centre on the north-flowing Kan Chiang, had closer cultural links with central rather than south China.\n\nThe first image (Plate 2), from Wu Kang and dedicated in 1756, is a household deity to protect the home and family and to bring blessings. The slip of paper relates that Worshipper Fu Shih-hsiang, together with his three sons and others from his family, all of Hsin Wu Chang Village, Yen Shan, Lung Chu district of Wu Kang county in Pao Ching prefecture (now Shao Yang), Hunan, on the 4th day of the 7th moon of the 20th year of Ch'ien Lung (1756), offered sacrifices to the gods at the City God temple in Shih Pei.† He also reported to them in writing that he and his whole family\n\n* Seahorses, found as far inland, would have a rarity value, though they are commonly used by Chinese herbalists & pharmacists.\n\n† Chinese characters are to be found on the illustrations of the slips of paper.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208842, "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": 4, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "14\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nwhich are about nine feet high and consist of two vertical halves each bearing a painting of a guardian. Facing outwards, the pair of guardians can be military or civil officials. The doors usually are kept open by day, although if the temple keeper goes out for any length of time he will close and in certain areas, padlock them.\n\nImmediately inside the main doorway, between it and the courtyard, are the spirit doors, a pair of wooden doors to prevent direct access to the temple by demon spirits.19 Instead of the pair of inner doors, some temples have a fixed, freestanding screen from floor to ceiling which performs the same demon-deflecting function (Illustration 5). Past the spirit doors, which are quite frequently left open or have been removed, there is the open area normally let down some 6\" into the ground and frequently unroofed known as the \"Incense Smoke Tower\". This is the courtyard, though in smaller temples it may not appear to be particularly grandiose. It has been suggested that the open roofed forecourt dates back to an era when deities required open skies above them. In Macau it is quite widely held that the tutelary deity of the temple should have an open view of the heavens above, though this is only so in five of the temples there.\n\nThe main hall (zheng ting) contains the main altar and is situated beyond the courtyard and in the rear-most building, more often than not with other halls and rooms grouped around it. The rooms on either side are usually identical in shape and size. These rooms and corridors are mainly used as store houses by the temple keeper and by local inhabitants.\n\nAdvancing beyond the open area of the courtyard into the main hall, often up one or two stone steps, we face the altar table with an ordinary table before it. The former has the five major objects — an incense bowl, two candle holders and two vases — and the latter bears any offerings. Beyond these tables, usually backing onto the wall, is the main altar, more often than not flanked by side altars.\n\nThe main hall of the majority of traditional temples is about 15 to 20 feet wide, with each of the side halls a further 9 to 15 feet wide. Their length is usually some 35 to 40 feet from entrance to rear wall. However, the main halls of the larger traditional temples in Hong Kong (in Stone Nullah Land, Hollywood Road and Temple Street) are some 30 to 40 feet wide and 50 to 60 feet in length, with proportionally higher roofs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208870, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "4\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nTemples and monasteries, despite their outward appearance are not always simple, self-contained religious units. Quite frequently they contain a number of major and minor deities, each with its special shrine or altar, hall or building.10 The original major deity may, for one of several reasons, be relegated to a secondary position and a new primary deity installed on the main altar. After some years and changes in abbots or temple keepers, the identity of certain deities, including surprisingly, major gods and goddesses, have been forgotten and, so as not to lose face, their identities are guessed at by temple staff, often wildly inaccurately.\n\nThere are several groups or complexes of folk religion temples in the two territories and to identify the number of individual temples on one particular site apart that is from where it is possible from reading the titles over the entrances-it is necessary to count the number of Earth Gods and Door Guardians in their niches inside the temple on the inside walls, usually opposite each other, facing across the various entrances. A single or pair of these deities is usually found in each individual temple within a complex of temples irrespective of how many entrances there are. The Wen Wu temple (or Man Mo in Cantonese) in Hollywood Road, Hong Kong is an example, with two temples side by side seeming to be one having only one courtyard. The Wen Wu itself, a large traditional temple, is to the east with its Door Official and Earth God sitting side by side in one shrine. In the smaller \"Temple of the Buddha of Light\" on the west, there is only a single image, a lone deity called the \"Door Official Earth God\", a title which amalgamates the titles of the two usual deities.\n\nUrban and rural11 folk religion temples differ in that the former tend to be more sophisticated, always have a keeper and several other staff, cater for worship by individuals at any hour (between 8am and 6pm) and have a wealth of images. Rural temples, in the main also boast keepers, but these are usually absent as they are \"pensioners\",12 very elderly people who spend much of their time asleep, calling on friends or shopping. Devotees visiting a rural temple normally find no one to assist them, and presumably, as this is an accepted facet of rural life, nobody seems to mind. The urban temple keeper on the other hand has to earn his living or recoup his investment of an annual tender, and so he ensures that a member of the staff is permanently in the temple during opening hours to assist in devotions, offer for sale incense, oil, charms and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208876, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "10\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nInside the library large cases of books cover the walls and some books, used more frequently, are individually wrapped in cloth and lie on tables and altars. The larger monasteries have rooms for the aged, and most have halls where ashes of devotees may be deposited.\n\nIn general, a visit to a Buddhist monastery would take you first past the shrine of the folk religion tutelary deity of the neighbourhood, the Earth God (1✯✯). (Illustration 3) Once through the gates and the entrance hall with its six \"guardians” (Mi Luo Fu, Wei Tuo and the Four Heavenly Kings) the layout follows a fairly standard pattern. The main altar will be straight ahead in the Great Hall which houses the main Buddhas. The main altar may be occupied by a single image, a group of three, or an array of a dozen or so. On and along the secondary altars, altars down the side walls and side halls there are images of other lesser deities. These, in twelve monasteries and temples in Hong Kong and Macau, include the well-known groups of eighteen or five hundred Luohan. Frequently, immediately behind the main altar and back to back with the main deity, stands the most popular and honoured of the Bodhisattvas, Guan Yin, with her two assistants.\n\nMahayana Buddhist temples contain a large number of images of Buddhas and major Bodhisattvas, some of which are considered to be more important than the image of Sakyamuni Buddha himself, unlike the Theravada Buddhist temples of Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and Srilanka in which Sakyamuni is the most important.\n\nThere appears to be only one temple in Hong Kong in which Lamaist images are worshipped, although there is one other, above Tsuen Wan, where in a private room, some forty or so Lamaist bronze images are on display.* The temple in which the Lamaist images appear on its altars is a shoddy, fairly modern concrete and corrugated iron construction above a new estate in North Point, where an elderly and now deceased Cantonese gentleman settled after spending some years in Tibet. Most devotees appear to have little idea of the style or origins of imagery, and the rituals and ceremonies performed in the temple by the widow of the founder are identical with those in other temples in Hong Kong.\n\n* Guan Yin temple in Fu Yung Shan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208878, "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "12\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nA typical Daoist temple is the very bare flatlet on the fourteenth floor of a high-rise block in crowded Shamshuipo, established by a widow from Fujian province in about 1965. Now in her early eighties, she lives alone in the flat, which has a resounding Daoist temple name, and has services performed once a week by a visiting lay priest. She recalled eight occasions when near death, she was saved by a specific Daoist Immortal, Lou Da Zhen Jun (**★**IA) who died late in the Ming dynasty, in Fujian, but who appeared again in spirit form in the twenties of this century in Amoy successfully to persuade a Bank of China manager to stop gambling. Lou's likeness is the only icon in the temple, and before it, services are held and sand-table prognostications obtained.\n\nA modern major religious complex above Lo Wai, Tsuen Wan, has on its main altar large images of Confucius, Lao Zi, and Sakyamuni, representing the three religions: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Above the altar hall, which is a modern pagoda, there are several buildings dedicated entirely to memorials, and in two of these halls, Daoist services for the dead are frequently performed.\n\nFolk Religion Temples\n\nThere are some two hundred and forty-six folk religion temples in Hong Kong. When sub-divided into architectural groups, approximately two-thirds of them are traditional buildings, two-ninths are modern constructions, legally built with the Hong Kong Government's permission,18 and one-ninth resettlement shacks, huts, or other illegal constructions. These latter fall into those tolerated by the Hong Kong authorities and those not tolerated.* The latter are regularly pulled down, often to be built illegally again nearby.\n\nTraditional temples in rural areas tend to have flourished around a catchment area of a village or two and have been built on the outskirts of one of the villages. Frequently, there is an adjacent open space used primarily for holding elaborate festivities on the main deity's annual feast day.\n\nAlthough most traditional folk religion temples built before World War II have a similar plan and general layout, no\n\n* To be explained by the periodic amnesties given to older, but still not tolerated illegal structures. 1976 saw the last to date, the purpose being to provide a new, realistic baseline for demolition of new structures (Hon. Editor).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208882, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "16\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\noften picked out in green or left in their natural state, though very quickly they are covered with incense soot.\n\nTraditional temples in Hong Kong and Macau have two predominant styles of facade. The first has a verandah, which stretches from side to side across the front and is covered by the roof (Illustration 7). The second style, the more common, consists of a regular oblong plan with the entrance door and the section of the front facade which fronts the main hall, set back about two feet into the whole facade. The facade fronting the two side halls is usually windowless, though occasionally it is decorated with long murals at roof height (Illustration 8).\n\nThe verandah of the first style is occasionally enclosed in a low, open balustrade. Above it the roof is supported by a stone beam from each side wall, reaching to and resting on the vertical columns which flank the entrance. Stone animals occasionally grace the beams, and more often than not the wooden support beams which stretch from the facade to the vertical pillars are heavily carved or support carvings depicting Chinese social life. In some villages, the Deng Family clan temple at Ha Tsun for example, the carvings depict everyday life, such as fishermen wading ashore from their grounded boats. In other temples, under the eaves high above the long verandah, murals of scenes in three dimensions in Shekwan pottery decorate the facade.\n\nThe majority of temples in Macau are single-hall temples (a total of 19 out of 32). The main halls of the two largest traditional temples in Macau, the Lin Feng Miao and the Guan Yin Miao are much the same basic size as those in the large Hong Kong traditional temples. However, the side halls and annexes of the two Macau temples are considerably larger. The large main hall of the Lin Feng Temple in Almirante Lacerda, facing WNW and backing onto the hill Colina de Mong Ha, has a main altar with two secondary altars on either side and, in addition, a second main altar in the front of the court, facing the main entrance. The whole Lin Feng complex has four separate major altars. There are two in the main hall, one at the front and one at the back and one each in the two side halls (with the one to the east having a further altar in a separate room). The temple's two side halls, each with its own main altar, are more than likely looked upon as separate temples as they have their own Earth Gods beside their entrances.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208884, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "18\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nmain altar, with a further three altars down the side walls. In the centre, a long altar divides the upper part of the hall from the lower. A side hall to the west, dedicated to one goddess, is also used as a workshop for the construction of paper items to be burnt in ceremonies for the dead. Behind this side hall is a courtyard beyond which is a separate hall containing three more altars. To the east of the main hall is a secondary hall, dedicated, not altogether surprisingly even in a traditional temple, to the Buddhist Trinity. This hall contains just the one large altar and behind it are the living quarters for the staff.\n\nSome traditional temples have had a secondary temple built alongside, as an annex or as a separate temple dedicated to a particular deity, and many traditional temples nowadays have had windows knocked into the outside walls, particularly into the rooms in which the keeper and his family reside.\n\nIn villages and hamlets there are two types of temple. The first is the small, often single-room popular folk religion temple or shrine, of the kind we have described above, in which one or two major deities are depicted on the main altar. The second, the clan ancestral hall or temple, may be a comparatively large complex of halls and rooms, the main hall of which contains, by seniority, serried rows of ancestral tablets of the most senior members of the family, the public ancestors of each generation back twenty or more generations.\n\nVillage temples, be they traditional folk religion or clan temples, are more than just religious establishments where prayers and offerings may be made. Side halls and rooms are used as the village storehouse for items like the old rice winnower, large tables and clan crockery*, as the village school, the games room and as the civic and medical centre. They also frequently are homes for one or two of the village needy.\n\nMost walled villages in the New Territories have a very small single-hall folk religion temple called a Shen Ting (神廳), dedicated to one of the national or local heroes (such as Guan Di or Hou Wang) situated in the north wall, facing south, and located at the opposite end of the main lane which bisects the village from the main gate. In most walled villages too, the Tu Di Gong (the Earth...\n\n*\n\nLineage or village properties that can be borrowed by families on festive occasions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208890, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "24\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nperhaps be recognisable. In one monastery near Tuen Mun very large murals depicting individual, fearsome soldiers were copies from sketches made in Peking many years ago but are only known as the \"Fierce Generals\".\n\nThe images of the deities on altars are frequently brightened with a red scarf or a large red rosette which covers the top of the head or hat of the images, with a ribbon hanging down on either side of the image to approximately waist height. Other decorations pinned into the hats of gods on the altars include long pairs of red and silver metal foil triangular rosettes. Cloth vestments are also commonly to be seen, made by elderly lady devotees as an act of piety and draped around the images of major deities.\n\nThere is a remarkable air of unkemptness about traditional temples. Things are stored flagrantly beside or under the altar without any regard for aesthetics. The clutter can range from bedding to broken furniture, plastic bowls to drying clothes, from spare tins of oil for the lamps to piles of old newspapers. Umbrellas hang on the wall, vests and underpants dry on the altar table edge, and everywhere there is a thick layer of dust.\n\nExternal decoration\n\nOutside decoration, usually very simple, consists of murals over the entrance, the flattish gable roof of dull, glazed tiles which on traditional temples more often than not leads up to an ornamented ridge piece. Exterior walls usually are of brick, granite or a combination of both which in some places have been whitewashed or have a cement finish.\n\nMany articles have already described traditional temple roof ridge external decoration, which is mainly of Shekwan pottery, with turquoise and golden yellow the two predominant colours. The decoration may only cover the horizontal ridge, though in quite a number of traditional temples it also covers the curved roof ridges joining the main ridge to the flank walls. The decoration on these ridges usually has a centrepiece consisting of a red ball (pearl) with dragons, fishes, cockerels and mythical creatures, interspersed with three-dimensional scenes from Chinese legend and myth. The roofs of smaller traditional unmanned, single room, coastal temples usually are without decoration, or if any attempt has been made it is stylized and very basic.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208896, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "30\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nor halls.32 Nearly 70% of all nunneries are on Lantau island, whereas only 10% of the monasteries are; and three hundred and fifty-three temples and monasteries have resident staff.\n\nThere are thirty-two temples in Macau, of which two are well-nigh derelict. Of the thirty-two temples, six are coastal, twenty-four are urban, and two rural. The majority of temples contain a mixture of Buddhist and folk religion images (no temples contain only Buddhist images), and the remainder contain only folk religion deities.\n\nDegrees of popularity of the major deities in temples and shrines\n\nThe total number of temples dedicated to a specific deity throughout the two areas reflects the importance of that deity to devotees. In Hong Kong and Macau, forty-four different gods each have at least one temple dedicated to him (or her), whilst only seven gods have more than five temples to him (or her). The seven, in order of precedence (based simply on them being the main deity of a temple or monastery), are Tian Hou (seventy-eight) (*), Sakyamuni Buddha (thirty-nine), Guan Yin (thirty-eight), Guan Di (twenty-one), Hong Sheng (twenty), Bei Di, who is better known as the Northern Emperor, (ten), and Lu Zu or Lu Dongbin (seven). Although this gives only a very rough guide, the number of images of Guan Yin throughout Hong Kong and Macau vastly outnumbers those of Tian Hou. However, when the criterion is the number of temples in Hong Kong and Macau in which a particular deity is to be found (on any altar and not necessarily as the main deity), then the first five are Guan Yin, whose image appears in at least seventy-five temples, Tian Hou (114), Guan Di (88), Qi Tian Da Sheng (Monkey) (61), and Di Zang Wang (59).\n\nThe Kitchen God, most frequently depicted by a reddish-orange paper pasted on the chimney above the stove, is the most common deity to be seen on the household altar, followed closely by Guan Yin, whose image, as we have noted, is also to be seen in 70% of all temples. The most common deities outside the home are Tu Di Gong, the Earth God (the local tutelary deity), in both urban and\n\n* The totals are not the number of images seen but the number of temples in which the deity is the main image in both Hong Kong and Macau.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208898, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "32\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\ninclude the burning of incense every day. This amongst other things saves the individual having to perform the rite before his ancestral tablets daily.\n\n4 There are no Confucian temples in either Hong Kong or Macau.\n\n5 Although there are obvious and major differences between Daoism, Buddhism and Folk religion, their beliefs and practices are so interwoven and syncretized beyond description, that in practice there is almost a single religious scheme of things. A handful of folk religion temples, mostly in Chaozhou and Min An community resettlement areas, are also centres for spirit medium activity. Chaozhou and Min An people customarily communicate with the major gods through minor gods and spirit mediums, Folk religion is very occasionally referred to as \"Spirit worship” (Shen jiao), albeit more by foreigners than by Chinese.\n\nChaozhou and Min An spirit mediums are usually males who speak with the more junior gods, whilst Cantonese spirit mediums are normally female and speak with the spirits of the dead.\n\n* The natives in both Hong Kong and Macau are Cantonese. Immigrants over the centuries who brought their own cultural heritage with them are the Hakka, Min An, Hoklo, and Chaozhou. The Chaozhou are speakers of the Chaozhou (sometimes called Swatow) whose native area is eastern Guangdong province. In folk religion the Chaozhou have more in common with their immediate neighbours to the north, the Min An and other Fukienese rather than with their Cantonese neighbours.\n\nThe total of 450 temples reflects the number found and visited by the author. The total given by the Hong Kong Government Temples Committee of the Home Affairs Department of over 500 private temples registered in Hong Kong is misleading in that their total includes to the author's knowledge quite a number of small temples which have been destroyed, removed or closed down. The author's number of 450 is also inaccurate as there are bound to be a number of very small temples hidden away in residential blocks of flats which would defy discovery without a visit to every floor of every apartment building.\n\n* County towns were the centres for official, commercial and religious activities. Villages within present day Hong Kong before the arrival of the British came under the jurisdiction of the mandarin at the county town of Hsin An (present day Pao An), north of the Sino-Hong Kong border.\n\n* However, an engraved title can easily be superseded when a more popular deity has been promoted to the main altar, without the title over the entrance being changed.\n\n10 Images on, beside, before and under altars can be categorised into the deities themselves, and their disciples, guardians and attendants. There are also two other categories of figures, seen only on separate altars in some Buddhist temples. These are the likenesses of the founding Abbot and of major donors and their wives.\n\n11 Urban and rural are terms used for the areas where the temples were established, and many a rural temple is now lost in the centre of a vast modern housing estate. Urban temples do not include village temples, they do however include the temples of the market towns such as Taipo and Yuen Long.\n\n12 These \"pensioners\" are normally the most needy and worthy elderly males or females of the community, voted or appointed into the post and supported there by subscription.\n\n13 See Hong Kong 100 Years Ago (Hong Kong City Hall, 1970) on the sixth page of photographs, though under another titling.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209327, "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-1981", "page_number": 230, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "216\n\nFABER, Mrs G.A.G. FAWCETT, Mr B.C. FRASER, Mr A.P. GALVIN, Mr J.A.T.\n\nGEORGE, Mr Timothy J.B. GIEDROYC, Mr Michael J.H. GOLDNEY, Miss C.M. HARDEN, Mrs Guy T., Jr. HAYDON, Mr E.S. HECHTEL, Mr F.O.P. HOWARTH, Mr Richard H. HUGHES, Mrs Marion HURT, Miss Evelyn J. INGLES, Miss Jean M. IRETON, Mrs Polly H. JOHNSTON, Mr James J. JORDAN, Dr David K. KIDD, Mr S.T.\n\n7\n\nKNOWLES, Miss Moria G. KNOWLES, Mrs W.C.G. KURATA, Mrs Lucien LANCHESTER Mrs G.W. LAUFER, Mr E.M. LAUFER, Mrs B.M. LI, DR Choh-Ming LINDSAY, Mr T.J. LOTHROP, Mr Francis B. MANSFIELD, Miss M.B. MICHAELIONES, Miss E.O. MILL, Major C.S., USMC MILLER, Mr Carl F.O. NICHOLS, The Hon. Mr E.H. O'BRIEN, Father J.R. PLAG, Rev. Albrecht POLAND, Mr Thomas D. RITCHIE, Mr Douglas J. ROBINSON, Prof. K.E. ROTHE, Mr Ulrich. SINFIELD, Mr G.HC. SPERRY, Mr Henry M. STEVENS, Mr Keith G. SWIRE, Mr A.C.\n\nTILL, The Very Rev. Barry TURNER, Sir Michael WARD, Miss Janet E.A. WELCH, Mr Holmes H. WHITELEGGE, Mr D.S. WOLF, Mr John\n\nORDINARY OVERSEAS MEMBERS\n\nANDERSON, Dr Eugene N., Jr.\n\nBARR, Mr J.W. BEVERIDGE, Mr R.J. BOND, Mr Michael W. CHAR, Mr Tin Yuke CHINN, Mrs Caroline Lee CLARK, Mrs A.T. COOPER, Dr Eugene\n\nDE FAZIO, Mr & Mrs M.F. EASTON, Ms. Linda\n\nFESSLER, Mr Loren FITZGIBBON, Mr Desmond GARD, Dr Richard A.\n\nGILMAN, Ms Claudia\n\nGOODRICH, Prof. L. Carrington\n\nHARRISON, Prof, B.\n\nHEMMING, Miss Janet M. HODGSON, Mr A.F.\n\nHODGSON, Mrs Kirsty Hamilton HOGAN, Mr James HUYSMAN, Mr J.\n\nKNEEBONE, Mrs Susan\n\nKRAMERS, Dr R.P. LIU, Prof. Ts'un Yan LU, Mrs Sylvia MACLEAN, Mr Roderick MATHIAS, Dr John R.G. McCOY, Mr John\n\nMORGAN, Mrs Carole MYERS, Mr John T. PARR, Mr M.J.\n\nREDFERN, Mr O'Donnell S. REID, Mr A.J.H. SCHWARZER, Mr C.A. SELWYN, Mr J.B. SMITH, Dr Ralph B. STEEDS, Mr David\n\nSTOKES, Mr John\n\nSTRAUCH, Dr Judith STURM, Prof. Fred Gillette VILLIERS, Dr John WATSON, Dr James L. WICKBERG, Professor Edgar", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211761, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "坏洋陳雲蔚陳云生\n\n坪淞萬其貴萬兆倫\n\n李蕾餘李鈴蘭李新明\n\n151\n\nI\n\n主施主等有權逐斥出寺兹當佈意伏冀同心當簽名公認惝日後有犯寺例不守清規我山爭權奪利者可比住持該寺堪稱其職同人等荒廢兹聞月坤女尼乃持齋念佛修行頗好非隅之嘆然寺中不可無人住持梵堂不可一寺中凡許願酹恩者不得其門而入不禁有向禪師圓寂後屢遭鼠竊致承其乏者不敢夜宿爲遴選住持安事神明事竊我長山寺自滌源民國二十年春季各施主公認吉立\n\n人列後\n\n蘭乪桂\n\n料\n\n群糖\n\n鬨倪\n\n鼻作作羅\n\n新瓊\n\n光\n\nNOTES\n\nSee Keith G. Stevens, “Chinese Monasteries. Temples, Shrines and Altars in Hong Kong and Macau”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 20, 1980, pp. 1-34.\n\n2\n\nThis plan is that standard since antiquity for major Buddhist monasteries in China. See J. Prip-Møller, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: Their Plan and its Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life, Copenhagen and Oxford Univ. Press, 1937, reprinted Hong Kong Univ. Press, 1967; and E. Boerschmann, Die Baukunst and Religiöse Kultur der Chinesen: Einzeldarstellungen auf Grund eigener Aufnahmen Während dreijähriger Reisen in China, Berlin, 1911, Vol. 1, P'u T'o Shan: Der Heilige Insel der Kuan Yin, der Göttin der Barmherzigkeit.\n\n3\n\nThis paper will deal only with the mainland New Territories, and leaves out all discussion of those pre-British monasteries and nunneries founded on Lantau.\n\n4\n\n* See Sung Hok-p'ang, “Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Ts'ing Shaan (青山) or Castle Peak'' in The Hong Kong Naturalist, July, 1935, reprinted in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 28, 1988, pp. 76-85. See also the document of 1089 on the history of this monastery in ch'uan 23 of the Hsin An County Gazetteer, at pages 187-188 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979.\n\n5\n\nIt seems to have been founded as part of the process by which the Tang (鄧) family of Ha Tsuen came to dominate the area in the early Ming, see James L. Watson, \"Waking the Dragon: Visions of the Chinese Imperial State in Local Myth”, in An Old State in New Settings: Studies in the Social Anthropology of China in Memory of Maurice Freedman. ed. Hugh Baker, S. Feuchtwang, (1991) pp. 162-178. The outside date for the foundation of Ling To would be, as Watson suggests, the early Ching. Local tradition from at least the seventeenth century (it is implied in a note on the monastery at Tuen Mun in ch'uan 21 of the Hsin An County Gazetteer of 1819 - at pages 173-174 of the Chung Lap Pao Edition, 1979 – this note was, however, taken over from the 1688 Gazetteer) would make if co-eval with the Ching Shan monastery (5th century), and, like the monastery at Tuen Mun...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212156, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "CHINESE LOCAL SEMI-DIVINE DEITIES\n\n75\n\nKEITH G STEVENS\n\nDeification in Chinese Folk Religion\n\nIt is hard to generalise about Chinese folk religion and beliefs and yet be sufficiently precise. Broadly speaking Chinese folk religion is a popular belief in a multitude of deities, with each community, be it province, city or village, having its own pantheon of deities. These include the spirits of both national and local worthies and heroes from recorded history in addition to the heavenly and nature deities revered China-wide.\n\nThere are a number of ways in which Chinese deities can be categorised ranging from the simplistic division into the deities who existed before the creation of the world and mankind and those who are deified humans, to more complex categories depending upon one's beliefs and viewpoint. I have found it easiest in practice to divide Chinese deities into six major categories consisting of:\n\n1.\n\n2.\n\n3.\n\nthe mythological, usually called Heavenly deities;\n\nnature spirits, the Gods of the Rain and Wind, of Trees and Streams, and of Mountains;\n\ndeified humans both legendary and real, frequently considered to be semi-divine:\n\n4-6. and the deities of the three religions: Confucianism, Buddhism\n\nand philosophical or institutional Taoism.\n\nTwo avenues to deification were open for humans: popular deification which evolved within the immediate community; and deification of deities whose cults received imperial or other official blessing. A number of the latter are deities of the former group whose growing popularity caused the cult to spread beyond the immediate locale and thus came to official notice and recognition.\n\nWe are particularly interested here in how humans have become local deities and will venture to distinguish between locally deified", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212379, "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": 321, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "298\n\nHeaven's Authority', T'ien Ling, and has his left hand at waist height making a mystical sign, the middle three fingers pointing vertically with the thumb and little finger bent over to touch each other.\n\nIn some places the scholar's robes are gilded and decorated with pa kua signs, in others the robe is plain. Other very minor variations, mostly in the carving of the creature, have also been noted. Also, in several instances, the scholar has a small sword or dagger tied suspended from his left hand.\n\nThere would appear to be no particular pattern to the donations which have spread far and wide throughout Taiwan during the years since '84; the temples include Buddhist and Taoist major and minor temples, and folk religion temples in small towns and cities.\n\nSo far none of the staff in the temples in which these images have been seen has been able to identify the deity. Without exception they have explained that the image has appeared on one of their altars without explanation and without seeing from where and how it arrived. One or two have had the courage to throw out the image only to find that another has replaced it within weeks. In most temples they have been accepted as just another deity and have been moved by the temple staff elsewhere within the temple, often to a rear position on a major side altar or to the small altar table before the main altar.\n\nThe questions are: Who is the scholar and what does he represent? Who donates these images and why? And is there an individual or cult behind the carving, donation and worship of this image?\n\nCan any Member or reader help enlighten me and, for that matter, this Journal, please?\n\nKEITH G STEVENS\n\nALTAR IMAGES FROM HUNAN\n\nIn my article on Altar Images from Hunan and Kiangsi (This Journal Volume 18, 1978 [pp 41-48]) I explained that Hunanese spirit images (rather than tablets) appeared to be unique in Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213062, "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-1993", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "111\n\nTHREE FUKIENESE (MIN-NAN) CULTS\n\nPao-sheng Ta-ti, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih and San P'ing Tsu-shih\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nNot more than seventy miles distant from Amoy, though in different directions, three separate cult centres remain extremely popular not only with local residents but with Chinese emigrants from the area who now live as far afield as Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. They are the cults of the health protector, Pao-sheng Ta-ti; and of two individual and distinctive Buddhist monks deified centuries ago, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih and San P'ing Tsu-shih.\n\nPao-sheng Ta-ti\n\nThe first, Pao-sheng Ta-ti, was traditionally a Sung dynasty local herbalist doctor, Wu T'ao or Wu Pen, who remained a bachelor and died in AD 1035. He is remembered not only for the magic spells he performed, such as spraying spirit water from his mouth on corpses or human skeletons bringing them back to life but, as his fame as a successful herbalist spread beyond Fukien, it led several centuries later to him being officially deified by Imperial Decree. It is not surprising therefore that his paramount role as a deity is to heal the sick. Known throughout his district, near Amoy, as the expert doctor who used his skills to cure the man in the street, he is remembered as having given his services free to the poor and by becoming a local deity by popular acclaim very shortly after his death. An image was carved by a local carver not long after his demise, said to be a true likeness but, according to another legend, it was how the carver had seen him in a dream. He is said by some to have been accompanied by a former petty official, only known as the Great Saint who Flew Off to Heaven [Fei-t'ien Ta-sheng], who also helped with his medical services. Pao-sheng Ta-ti is the patron deity of herbalists in Taiwan who claim he wrote a major medical encyclopedia and was a specialist in acupuncture in addition to his other skills.\n\nWu T'ao, born around AD 979, is said to have lived a virtuous life.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213618, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "187\n\nTWO GROUPS OF CHINESE DEITIES RARELY SEEN ON CHINESE ALTARS\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nImages of Chinese deities on altars either stand alone, with their aides and assistants where applicable, or in groups of two, three, five, eight, ten, eighteen as dictated by their legend or custom. There are many such groups, most of which are to be seen on a number of temples. However, two groups, though quite frequently referred to in scripture and legend have only been noted once. The first, the Six Patriarchs of Buddhism, stand on three altars, side by side, in a secondary hall of a popular religion temple run by Ch'aochou devotees in Chonburi, a city just south of Bangkok. The second, the Taoist Seven True Ones (of the Northern School), the disciples, enlightened ones, of Wang Chung-yang can be seen in a separate side hall dedicated to them of a temple at the base of Hua Shan in Shensi province.\n\nThe Patriarchs of Buddhism, Tsu\n\nThere are two separate groups of Buddhist patriarchs, those of the West, that is, with Indian and Hindu origins, and those of the East, that is, Chinese. Indian patriarchs of Western Buddhism totalled twenty-eight, a few of whom were still revered in mainland Chinese temples during the earlier part of this century.\n\nThe Chinese patriarchs of Eastern Buddhism, a total of six, the Tung-tsu Liu(1), belong to a relatively late stage in the development of Buddhism in China of which one, the last and Sixth, Liu Tsu, is still regarded as a major deity in his own right by the Cantonese. However, images of Liu Tsu, together with the other five Patriarchs are to be seen in Chonburi, in a large combined Buddhist-Taoist temple.\n\nThe first patriarch of Chinese Buddhism is Bodhidharma who was also the 28th and last Patriarch of Indian Buddhism. He left India when already an old man and in about AD 520 after travelling for about three years he reached Canton bringing with him the sacred alms bowl of the Indian Patriarchate. He died some ten years later and, according to different schools of thought, is buried either near Loyang or near...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213908, "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": 260, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "IMPERMANENCE OF IMAGES IN CHINESE POPULAR RELIGION TEMPLES\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n235\n\nAt first glance the images of the deities on the altars in Chinese popular religion temples would appear to be permanent fixtures, as indeed is the relative position of images. And so they are in a great number of places. However, changes for several reasons do take place, the main one being the addition of a further deity to the temple altar and the balance of seniority requiring marginal movement to take place. Another factor is the change in or deletion of images due to the decisions of temple committees following some incident, often a devotee's dream, such as those requiring the addition of a further deity.\n\nWe are not looking here at the Lieh-shen T'an1, often the extreme altar stage right in the main hall, a conglomerate of unconnected deities, where all donated images are placed. The movement of images here is commonplace as more and more images over the years are donated usually by the relatives of dead devotees as a means of disposing of personal household images without upsetting anyone's feelings.\n\nTo notice change, long term observation, over a matter of decades rather than years, is essential, with the greatest change usually taking place during the rare refurbishment and redecoration of a temple. As an example we shall look at the Temple of the Lord of T'ai ShanA in Tainan city in southern Taiwan.\n\nThis old temple until the late 1980s was an extremely eerie and awesome place. The grime of centuries, the dim and poorly illuminated halls with the almost black images standing on the shadowy altars and against the side walls, provided an atmosphere approximating the role of the deities, the bureaucrats and enforcement agents of the Afterworld, whose images fill the temple. This has radically changed since the redecoration. Statues on the major altars were well nigh impossible to discern through the grimy glass windows fronting the main altars. All now tends to be clean, bright and much more airy, with modern strip lighting eliminating most of the shadows.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213933, "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": 3, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "From the Hon. Editor\n\nVol. 36, 1996\n\nAddendum\n\nConcerning the Note on page 239 of Vol. 36, SUPPLICATING THE DEITIES IN MAINLAND CHINA'S TEMPLES, by Keith Stevens, the author has asked that the following paragraph be added at the end:\n\nDespite what I had observed in Shanghai and elsewhere in Mainland China, in March 1998 I came across devotees using oracle sticks in two temples in Hunan province to seek advice from deities. One was in the main temple at the base of the Taoist Holy Mountain, Heng Shan; the other was in a large popular religion temple some ten miles south of Changsha on the banks of the Xiang Jiang, the major river flowing through the area. In both places temple staff sat behind a counter, with the devotees collecting the bamboo tubes from them and then rattling the sticks before the image of the main deity until one of the sticks rose up, thereby providing the 'lucky' number for the devotee who then collected the usual small printed slip bearing the same number and the relevant destiny or fortune.\n\nii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214118, "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": 186, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "155\n\nAsiatic Society has really been a “labour of love\" and James has described the Branch as the \"Joy of his life\". Although now living \"Down Under\", he likes to stress he is \"only a fax away\". He makes regular visits back to Hong Kong.\n\nFollowing Dr Hayes as President was David Gilkes. Almost all his nearly 30 years as a member of the Branch in Hong Kong was spent as an office bearer.\n\nIn addition to Dr Hayes the Reverend Carl T. Smith, at present as Honorary Vice-President, an American, is another Branch member with an international reputation. He has made major contributions to local history with many publications to his credit. One of his greatest achievements was working through all the records in the Hong Kong Public Records Office (Smith 1995: 315). As a result the \"Carl Smith Card Index System\" has been microfilmed by the Utah Genealogical Society and a copy of the system is in the Public Records Office where it is known as the \"Smith Collection\",\n\nOther Hong Kong RAS present or past members of note include J. D. Romer, normally known to the Chinese as the “Snake King”. In Cantonese, this expression has a double entendre. Romer was, however, certainly not a lazy person! Worldwide, the Romer Tree Frog (Philautus romeri) is found only on one or two of Hong Kong's islands. It is little bigger than an adult's thumb nail and was first identified by Romer (Dudgeon 1994: 168),\n\nThere is also Keith Stevens, now an overseas member living in England, where his house has a large “god room\". His personal collection, said to be the largest private collection of Chinese gods in the world, consists of about 1,500 images of deities (Stevens 1997).\n\nThe future\n\nA well attended seminar was held in May 1987, the purpose of which was to look at the future of the RASHKB. At the time, a questionnaire was also issued to all members. Since then, the future role of the Branch has been discussed at various Council meetings.\n\nIt was quoted in a publication entitled, A Handbook to Hong Kong,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214350, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 208, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "173\n\nTHE DEIFICATION OF HEROES FOLLOWING THE STRUGGLE BY THE VASSAL STATE OF CHOU TO OVERTHROW THE SHANG DYNASTY\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nThe lives of a great number of Chinese historical figures, heroes, worthies, bandits and revolutionaries, sovereigns and commoners over the centuries have become mythologized and the subjects of teashop story tellers. Their deeds and words have been fictionalised, themes known to the majority of Chinese. Some have found their way into religious life and become deified worthies. Many of these tales, ostensibly biographies of deities, are predominantly fantasy wedded with historico-fictional legends, a number of which comprise two or more volumes, others involve an enormous cast of heroes and worthies as well as scores of supernatural characters. Three major historico-legendary tales in particular have coloured popular religion beliefs. These are The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West and The Deification of the Gods. Other works have also been sources of peasant knowledge about individual deities such as The Romance of the Sui-Tang [Sui-Tang Yanyi].\n\nWe are particularly interested here with The Deification of the Gods. [Fengshen Yanyi: a novel also known to foreigners as The Investiture of the Gods]. 'The Feng-shen Yen-i addressed the moral and philosophical question of the origins of the gods and is an unsophisticated version of history describing the overthrow of the dynastic house of Shang by the vassal Zhou which took place some 3,000 years ago, at a mythological time when the \"human\" gods were created. It has an overlay of Buddhism despite this religion in practice not reaching China until some thousand years after the overthrow of the Shang and the establishment of the Zhou and not incorporated into Chinese religious beliefs until the time of Christ. It is the story of the decline of a dynasty, the Shang, with its depraved, dissolute and brutal ruler, under the spell of a beauty, his concubine, leading at first to his ineffective attempts to subdue his vassal Zhou state, and later to the Zhou mustering its forces and allies to attack the Shang and lay siege to its capital.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214363, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 221, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "187\n\nTEMPLES ARISE\n\nFROM THE ASHES OF REVOLUTION\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nReturning from each of our tours of temples in Mainland China the question most frequently posed is the extent to which religious freedom exists in China? I find this difficult to answer. I have yet to visit an area where we have observed any form of obvious religious discrimination or evidence of current iconoclasm. At the risk of being accused of being a 'blind' observer in a country with a record of political suppression, I know that constraint of religion by the State exists as I have read numerous articles in the Chinese press about Chinese government calls for crackdowns on illegal temples and superstitious practices, but the extent to which these instructions have been carried out has not been apparent during our tours around the countryside. Indeed, there are few signs of religious suppression in any form. In late 1997 we came across a small rural temple in one of the loess canyons some fifteen or so miles north-east of T'aiyüan in Shansi province and were told by one of the villagers that the local Public Security Police had ordered it be pulled down as it was 'a bad element, a manifestation of superstition'. The small modern shrine, constructed some eight years ago, contained just one deity, a very rough and amateurish, modern baked-mud and concrete image of the local protective spirit, Ts'ai T'ai-yeh. The PSB had passed through the village many times during the two years since they issued the order for the destruction of the image; however, the villagers had simply ignored it and even when crowds of visitors drove in by car during the annual festival on the fifteenth of the first lunar month, the PSB again had simply turned a blind eye.\n\nChina's constitution theoretically protects the freedom of religion in China with party members being dissuaded from practising. Whilst permissive religion is unquestionably allowed within certain bounds I suspect 'tolerance' should be substituted for the word freedom. The Bureau of Religious Affairs under the State Council in Peking permits the five major organised religions to worship as they wish, within reason. These are Taoism, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism [known in China as 'Christian'] and Islam. The Bureau does, however, frown on and frequently clamps down on popular religion, [also known as folk religion and even as Taoism by foreigners who have not perceived the difference] and some of the smaller proselytising western", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214460, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 318, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "285\n\nTHE AMERICAN SOLDIER OF FORTUNE FREDERICK TOWNSEND WARD HONOURED AND REVERED BY THE CHINESE WITH A\n\nMEMORIAL TEMPLE\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nFrederick Townsend Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1831 and though he is said to have attended a private college in the United States, which included a military element in its curriculum, he failed to graduate. He left home and as a young ship's officer sailed on several trading voyages to China.\n\nIn his twenties, having sought excitement and a career as a free-booter during which time he claimed that he had fought in the Crimea with the French and in Central America where he met Garibaldi, he sailed yet as an officer on a US registered ship to China where, at the time, the Taiping rebellion, a major rebellion against the Ch'ing [Manchu] dynasty, was at its height and he finally sought employment ashore. Basically, he was a mercenary who saw his chance and took employment first sponsored by local Chinese officials and supported by a Chinese official in the defence of the Shanghai area from the rebels, then later by Ch'ing officials in his campaign against the same rebels, either for gain or excitement, possibly both.\n\nWard raised a force of some hundred Western mercenaries, on behalf of the Chinese in Shanghai, together with scores of Filipinos, as well as soldiers and sailors discharged or deserters from the Anglo-French expedition, for the protection of the city against what seemed like an impending attack by the Taiping Rebel forces. This proved a failure and a year or so later he raised a highly competent and disciplined force of Chinese soldiers officered by Westerners to fight the rebels. Ward became a Chinese citizen with an official rank. He claimed Chinese nationality when arrested by the captain of a British warship for violating neutrality but in the event was handed over to the Chinese because of his \"non-nationality.\"\n\nAt first the force of about a thousand was known as the Foreign-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214566, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 424, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "393\n\nvi We are indebted to the Museum of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment in the Castle at Carlisle for permission to quote from the regimental diaries of the Westmoreland Regiment in Chusan.\n\nvii See the article \"The Taking of Chapu\" by Keith Stevens in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the RAS: Vol.34 : 1994 : pp 119+.\n\nviii The report would appear to have been written in the 1880s during the incumbency as the Colonel of the Regiment of Lieutenant General Daubeny. This was about the same time as an amalgamation of regiments when the Westmoreland Regiment became the 2nd Battalion of the Border Regiment.\n\nix Regimental number omitted\n\n* Ensign Richard James Duell fell dead, shot in the chest at close quarters during the assault on the heights held by the Chinese. He had only heard that morning, October 1, 1841, of his promotion from the rank of Sergeant-Major and at once requested the honour to carry the regimental colour in the impending attack. During the advance Lieutenant and Acting-Adjutant Butler, after a sharp struggle with a Chinese soldier, captured the only imperial standard taken during the war. It was deposited in Kendal Church where it can still be seen beside the regimental memorial. [see also Bruce, P: An Imperial Chinese Banner Preserved in Kendal, England: Journal HK Br RAS: vol. 23: 1983 pp 202-203]\n\nxi Beside the Chinese characters, extreme left of the inscription, is a small cartouche containing smaller illegible characters which was almost certainly a date in old style.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215102, "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": 198, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "155\n\nIMAGES ON CHINESE POPULAR RELIGION\n\nALTARS\n\nOF THE HEROES\n\nINVOLVED IN THE SUPPRESSION\n\nOF\n\nTHE AN LUSHAN REBELLION [AD 755 - 763]\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nChina suffered a major internal political upheaval between 755 and 763 when General An Lushan led a rebellion against the Tang emperor. It took some seven years for it to be decisively suppressed by government forces.\n\nFrom some records it would appear that An Lushan was half Turkish and half Soghdian, the son of a Soghdian officer and known as Rokhshan before he took the Chinese name of An Lushan. Recent histories written by foreigners only rarely refer to An Lushan prior to his command of a punitive expedition against the Khitan in 736. This campaign was a failure to such an extent that his superior general considered having him executed. Within ten years, however, he became one of the most powerful of the generals, ruling most of the north-east of what was then China, and in particular holding the governorship of three frontier cities, Pinglu, Fanyang and Hedong, along the northern borders of present day Hebei and Shanxi provinces. This meant that he commanded the best and largest armies of the Empire.\n\nProfessor Giles' provided An Lushan's biography in some detail, and although very dated it is still of great interest:\n\nAn Lu-shan died in AD 757. He was born in Luk-chak, of Turkic descent, whose original name had been K'ang. [Presumably Giles was quoting Chinese sources when he related that]... An Lu-shan's mother had been a witch who had prayed for a son on the Ya-lao mountains and at his birth, a halo was seen around the house, and the beasts of the fields cried aloud. The authorities sent to have the child put to death, but he was successfully concealed by his mother. His father died young and his mother re-married, a man named An;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215594, "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": 371, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "321\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nA TALE OF SOUR GRAPES: MESSRS. LITTLE AND MESNY AND\n\nTHE FIRST STEAMSHIP THROUGH THE YANGZI GORGES\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nIn 1898 Archibald Little was the first man to take a steam-vessel up through the dangerous Yangzi Gorges amidst great acclaim. This was a red-rag to William Mesny who, in 1905 in his Shanghai periodical Mesny's Chinese Miscellany, furiously wrote that had he been listened to in 1875, a steamboat could have completed the journey up the Gorges within a year or so of that date.\n\nThe 3,200-mile long river, referred to by westerners as the Yangzi is known to the Chinese as Changjiang, Long River, or Da Jiang, the Great River. The foreigner name, Yangzi, is a misnomer from the Chinese reference to the first stretch from the Yellow Sea, approximately a day or so sail up from Shanghai to Yangzhou, hence Yang.\n\nThe River can be divided into four sections. The first stretch from the sea to Wuhan [Hankou and Wuchang], some 600 miles upstream, is navigable for blue water vessels during the summer and small draught steamers at all times of the year. It may come as a surprise to read of the emergency run in September of 1931 of the British aircraft carrier, H.M.S. Hermes to Hankou during major floods. The Chairman of the Nationalist Flood Relief Commission, T.V. Soong, requested the British C-in-C for assistance using RAF reconnaissance aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes to assist the Chinese in flood survey patrol work.\n\nThe second stretch upstream from Wuhan to Yichang is always navigable to small draught vessels and is a very boring run passing, as it does, through a flat plain with many dykes.\n\nThe third stretch from Yichang to Chongqing is fast flowing downstream through the narrow and dangerous succession of Gorges, so popular with foreign tourists. The great variations in water level", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216022, "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-2002", "page_number": 321, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "THE YANGZI PORT OF ZHENJIANG DOWN THE CENTURIES\n\n鎮江\n\nPART I\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n255\n\nIntroduction\n\nZhenjiang is a former walled city on the south bank of what is known to the Chinese as the Chang Jiang, the Long River, or simply as The Great River, and to Westerners - the Yangzi [Yangtze]. The city lies some 40 miles downstream from Nanjing and 156 miles upstream from Shanghai, and in its prime during the Northern Song, in the eleventh century, it was one of the major ports on the River, and even though its influence and authority came to a sudden and dramatic end with its capture and destruction by the Taiping rebels in 1853 it remained the provincial capital of Jiangsu province down to the 1940s.\n\nZhenjiang commanded one of the two junctions of the southern or main arm of the Grand Canal with the Yangzi. The city is surrounded on one side by the Yangzi and on three other sides by hills, none at all high or steep, with the Grand Canal winding past the southern and western face of the walls to its convergence with the River at the Xiannü Temple. The city has been walled since the Yuan [13th century], and was built on the level ground between the Yangzi and the Grand Canal. Three of these numerous hills, all islands or former islands in the Yangzi, Jiao Shan, Beigu Shan and Jin Shan, are part of the city's legend. Some ten miles to the south lies a range of higher hills within which foreigners used to seek their exercise, riding and hunting.\n\nOf all the treaty ports Zhenjiang is possibly the least remembered by the great majority of westerners, with very few nowadays even having heard of the place. Not even when it is explained that in former romanisations it has been known to foreigners as Chinkiang, Chin-kiang, Chen-chiang Fu, Chin-keang-foo, Tsing-kiang-foo, Kin-kiang, Chingkiang, Tsing-kiang and Jingkou [i.e. Gateway to the Capital - Nanjing]. It was even known by the title of Chin-shan [Jin Shan], Gold", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216178, "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-2002", "page_number": 477, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "411\n\nYET MORE ON THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE, 1917-1921\n\nDAVID MAHONEY\n\nKeith Stevens writes that Brian Fawcett in his article on \"THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE\" quoted a figure of 30,000 Chinese who returned to and remained in France, from China, after World War I. He added that the figure appears excessive. In fact, the total of all the Chinese labourers recruited by the French for the French Chinese Labour Corps during World War I did not exceed 50,000.\n\nThe French began their recruitment of Chinese in 1916, some six months before the British did. The scheme was initiated following preliminary discussions on the practicalities of recruiting Chinese labourers to be shipped to France to work in munitions factories to release Frenchmen to serve in the trenches, with the initial idea being to recruit Chinese from the area around the French treaty port of Guangzhouwan in Guangdong in southern China. This, however, was rejected and Jiangsu province - a northern province where the Chinese were hardier and used to northern climes - was selected, particularly in view of the wide French missionary influence in that province. A French Army major was despatched from French Indo-China (now Vietnam) to Shanghai where he was based in the French Concession ostensibly as a French civil servant, to avoid embarrassing the Chinese, to report on the practicality of the proposal. His report was favourable and accepted, and recruitment of Chinese volunteer labourers was started in Jiangsu province, in the vicinity of Shanghai in July 1916.\n\nThe labourers were transported by sea from Shanghai to Marseilles, where the main French CLC was situated, and Le Havre, and trained and worked in munitions factories across France such as Bergerac in the Dordogne, or in private concerns such as the Schneider factory at Le Creusot. Such employment was not possible in Britain due to the objections raised by British trade unions. French Chinese labourers were often billeted in French homes, and an unknown but comparatively large number married French women, some of whom accompanied their husbands back to China. The few labourers who died in France were buried at French civil cemeteries. Their records were maintained at the Headquarters in Lyons.\n\n'JHKBRAS: Vol. 40, 2000, pp. 33-111.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]