[
    {
        "id": 209692,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1982",
        "page_number": 349,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n327\n\nprofessional entomologists, school teachers, university undergraduates or any interested reader. Its reading style is easy, and the book can be enjoyed both by the professional, and by the amateur looking for an interesting volume to fill in the hours before bed time. One can on the one hand, find a highly specialised entomological term such as 'scarabaeiform' explained in the book, while, on the other, having the curious mating behaviour of mantids described to the unfamiliar reader in a simple and clear way.\n\nIts extensive index can and will be readily used as an indispensable check list in the field.\n\nOne personal criticism of this book is the lack of a few colour plates, which if present, would make it even more attractive. Nevertheless, its other merits certainly outweigh this shortcoming, and I strongly recommend this book to all lovers of nature,\n\nWILKIN W. K. CHEUNG\n\nMak Lau Fong, The Sociology of Secret Societies, A Study of Chinese Secret Societies in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia (Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1981).\n\nTo give a taste of the sort of frustration any reader of this book must be prepared for, let me begin by briefly summarizing the section on \"internal control\" (pp. 70-71) in chapter 5, \"Adaptive changes in the organizational structure.\"\n\nThe author begins by outlining three types of coercion defined by the American sociologist Amitai Etzioni. He goes on to quote a report in 1867 in which a Penang secret society headman explained the types of punishment that were meted out to society members who were disobedient. The headman's types, however, have nothing whatsoever to do with Etzioni's types. He then goes on to mention interview data that suggest torture and killing being \"still in use\" as punishment. The reader obviously wonders what these data might consist of, whether \"still in use\" refers to the time the author was writing or to the time of the interviews, and what was actually said, but the author leaves all these points in the air by departing for yet another",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213412,
        "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": 8,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nHONG KONG BRANCH\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1995/96\n\nThis is the 36th Annual General Meeting of the Society since its re-birth in 1960, and it gives me great pleasure to report to you on the events and activities of the previous year, i.e. the 35th Anniversary Year.\n\nBefore doing so however I would like to say one or two things about the Society's history, current situation and some thoughts on the future. The Royal Asiatic Society was originally conceived in the United Kingdom in the early part of the 19th century in 1825; it was conceived because it was recognised that in view of the spread of commercial and other activities in the near and Far East there was a need to fulfil a desire by many to form a structure whereby the history and social aspects of those countries in which the United Kingdom had an interest could be studied in more detail. The early membership of the Society was therefore made up of leading academics and politicians who were known to be experts in their subject, and who were keen to bring that knowledge to a wider public. A building was leased in the centre of London where members could meet, a library was built-up and lectures at periodic intervals were well attended by the standards of the time. If you now visit the Royal Asiatic Society in London you can do so at their bought premises in Queen Anne's gate. It still has monthly lectures, and it has a really splendid library, which not only houses some very rare books but also a fine array of interesting journals from many parts of Asia, including I was pleased to note our own Society's journals.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society in London, however, did not confine its aspirations to the United Kingdom; it spread its wings far and wide and Royal Asiatic Societies sprung up in a variety of interesting places, particularly in the main cities of India, and the Malaysian Peninsular, in addition to some other countries in the near East. The Hong Kong Branch was founded in 1847, only six years after the foundation of the colony, and later on Australia, and New Zealand founded Royal Asiatic Societies. Shanghai had one and in fact had a building on the Bund with a splendid library, and you can, if you persevere, see the books in a...\n\nVII",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215332,
        "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": 109,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "57\n\nnot orthodox spirits shen\n\nbut dark spirits. Yinshen, the ghosts of those who have died a violent death before their due date.\n\nChinese usually describe this group, in English, as the 108 Martyrs. They are never portrayed as images and tend to be regarded more as public worthies, folk hero \"ethnic group\" ancestors rather than deities. The tablet is very similar to the ancestral tablet and simply states that it is the 'Tablet to the One Hundred and Eight Brothers'. It is venerated and although the spirits of the brothers are occasionally asked for advice by devotees they are not usually prayed to for major requests or protection, although in Java in one temple the tablet was prayed to by seafarers before they set out on a long journey. Their festival, simple and not in any way lavish, is generally celebrated on the 15th day of the tenth lunar month, though in Singapore it is held on the 3rd of the eighth lunar month.\n\nThe question is, who were the One Hundred and Eight Brothers? Three separate versions of the story of their demise have each been recounted with great solemnity, conviction and confidence by temple keepers in Java, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, and even in a Chinese temple in Bali. In Penang the story centres on a junk-load of Hainanese immigrants heading for South-east Asia which never arrived. One version claims that they were mistaken for pirates and wiped out by the 'French' [sic] navy off Annam or the 'British' off Malaya again having been mistaken for pirates. Another version suggests that they were all drowned during a typhoon off the southern tip of what is now Vietnam, and yet another that they were annihilated by Chinese government forces off the Leizhou peninsular immediately north of Hainan when, again, they were mistaken for pirates.12 The third story is that they were the original immigrants from Fujian province who arrived in Hainan to settle but all died in Hainan from disease or at the hands of the aborigines. A twist to the version heard in Penang claimed that the typhoon which sank the junk in the South China Seas drowned all but one of the one hundred and nine aboard, one small boy being saved after days of drifting on wreckage. He then died in Malaya at a ripe old age.\n\n12\n\nOne hundred and eight is a secret symbolic number used by secret societies, and one of the Triad gangs in British Malaya was known as the 'One Hundred and Eight Society.' with a devotee in Seremban",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215342,
        "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": 119,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "67\n\nhave been unable to explain his origins, history or any other details. In Malaysia we were told that he had been a hero, killed in the Leizhou peninsular immediately to the north of Hainan [or 'in Leizhou city (nowadays Leicheng) in western Guangdong province'], and that he had been a general, the eldest of three brothers, who had long ago earned great merit working for the common good and was deified. In Singapore, where again he is depicted as one image in the centre of a comparatively crowded secondary altar, it was claimed that he had been a general, killed several centuries ago saving a major unidentified town from invaders. His festivals are celebrated on the 17th of both the first and third lunar months.\n\nOne of the two temples in Malaysia contained three images on the main altar, the usual image of Baima Laoshi Gong together with two standard seated images of mandarins. These were identified as the First, Second and Third Laoshi Gong and were understood to have been brought to Malaysia by immigrants from Hainan some forty years ago. The temple keepers and devotees of both these temples were predominantly Chaozhou Chinese. Nowadays devotees of this cult in Singapore, however, are predominantly Hengwa (Xinghua) from Fujian province.\n\nLapshi Gong is prayed to for 'household affairs' in one of the two temples in central Malaysia, whilst in the other, run by a popular medium who spoke with the voice of Laoshi Gong and is claimed to be extremely gifted, the deity is believed to be able to cure most illnesses. The deity was being treated with exceptional reverence during the latest visit by the author, when a ritual was being performed before the altar requesting a cure for a very sickly looking infant held by its anxious mother.\n\nAmong the Hengwa Hokkiens in Singapore he is rarely revered as a separate deity. He is prayed to and offered incense and oil as one of the collection of deities on the altar, though the temple keeper added that a number of gamblers specifically pray to him. The temple keeper also said that he had not been aware that the deity had any such speciality when first he had taken over the temple in the early sixties. The custom of gamblers seeking divine help was fairly recent and had, he presumed, developed after someone had had a win following a petition to the deity.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]